Today is a momentous day for the studio and Guild Wars 2® fans as we launch the finale for Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™ entitled "The Midnight King"! This update contains three new story chapters that begin after the events of "The Realm of Dreams". Eparch hunkers in the spires of Zakiros, amassing unfathomable power. Shoulder to shoulder with an unlikely alliance of soldiers, wizards, and demons, the wayfinder spearheads a desperate attempt to overthrow the Midnight King and take the throne of the Realm of Dreams.
As a refresher, this update—and the two major updates before it—are part of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure content cycle and therefore included for anyone who owns the expansion!
What's New?
Our studio update blog from last week gives a great overview of what to expect for Guild Wars 2 over the next couple of months. If you haven't read it yet, you may have missed that we're adding reticle customization to the action camera and a sixth guild slot! As for today, "The Midnight King" update contains oodles of new things to do, places to explore, and rewards to collect. There are also tons of bug fixes and polish throughout all of the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure content. Here are some highlights of today's update:
Completed Inner Nayos explorable zone with new adventures and events
Into the Spider's Lair epic meta-event finale
Expanded Astral Ward Mastery: Wayfinder Mastery
Convergences challenge mode introduced
New legendary Convergences boss: Umbriel, Halberd of House Aurkus
New ranger pet: juvenile spinegazer
Additional events and adventures added to Amnytas
Many new achievements and rewards
Twitch Drops
Twitch drops are back! From May 21 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8) to May 26 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8), you'll be able to earn a Guild Wars 2 Classic Outfit Selection by watching any Twitch channel broadcasting Guild Wars 2 for 6 hours. The Guild Wars 2 Classic Outfit Selection allows you to choose one outfit to unlock permanently on your account.
We're thrilled to see the community experience the finale to this expansion today, and be sure to check out the full update notes for "The Midnight King" on the official Guild Wars 2 forums.
Lastly, we'd like to share a gallery of screenshots for "The Midnight King" with all of you.
Happy gaming!
Studio Update: Guild Wars 2 in Spring and Summer 2024
Greetings, Guild Wars community!
My name is Josh Davis, and I'm the game director for Guild Wars 2®. Today, I'm excited to present the Spring and Summer 2024 Studio Update and give you the latest scoop on what's coming to Tyria. We have a lot of ground to cover today—from Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™ to World vs. World to Player vs. Player and more—so let's dive right into things.
Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure: "The Midnight King"
The final update for Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, "The Midnight King," will arrive next Tuesday, May 21. This content will be available for free to all current and future owners of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure.
These final story chapters will bring the commander deeper into the world of Nayos, to the Citadel of Zakiros, where the indomitable Midnight King himself resides. These story chapters come with expanded playable space in Inner Nayos and a climactic meta-event chain. In addition, this release also includes the Lonely Tower—our latest fractal dungeon, the second tier of the legendary Obsidian armor set, refreshed Wizard's Vault rewards and challenges, and six new relics. We'll spend a few weeks monitoring the fractal dungeon and balancing the encounter if needed, and then on June 4 we will introduce the fractal's challenge mode.
Speaking of challenge mode, we're excited to announce that the May 21 release will also introduce a challenge mode for the squad-based version of Convergences and its five legendary bosses (yes, a fifth boss is incoming). You'll fight amped-up versions of each encounter while dealing with stricter resurrection rules. You'll earn extra rewards for your efforts, and achieving a gold-ranked clear time on all five encounters will net you a new title to show off to all your pals. We're also adding an in-game leaderboard for all five bosses, so you can compete with your friends for the fastest clear times and bragging rights.
Finally, we have three exciting quality-of-life updates coming with this release. First, squad messages will now appear when hovering over commander icons on the minimap. This will make it easier to identify the purpose of a squad, especially when you have multiple commanders operating on the same map. Second, by popular request, we're introducing a nifty accessibility upgrade that allows players to customize the color and shape of the targeting reticle while using the action camera mode. And finally, we are increasing the guild membership limit from five to six for all players. Time to make some more friends!
World vs. World Updates
It's happening! We're excited to announce that the World Restructuring system will be moving into an always-on beta status beginning with the WvW reset on June 14.
This feature has been a long time coming, and there will undoubtedly be kinks that we'll need to iron out with the launch, but making the feature perpetually available to players will allow us to iterate on the system more quickly than the limited beta events we’ve run previously . For example, we are continuing to hammer out the remaining queue bugs.
To further mitigate the queue issue in the short term, we'll add an additional tier to both NA and EU WvW, which will reduce the queue length for maps during prime time. (As a note, the end of the final relinking period will be extended from May 31 to June 14.)
We have a few important changes coming to help prepare for the introduction of World Restructuring. We are increasing the guild membership limit from five to six to give WvW players some added flexibility in creating or joining guilds for World Restructuring. Second, we're introducing an in-game timer under the name "Next team creation lockout" in the guild panel to help communicate when changes to battle guilds will take effect.
Finally, to help memorialize the worlds we've been battling over for the past twelve years, you'll be able to don a new title to honor them (example: Anvil Rock Veteran). These will be available as a free one-time purchase from Commander War Razor in WvW. We recognize that the world you consider your true home may not be the world you currently reside on, so we're leaving it up to you to choose the title that means the most to you. Choose carefully!
The May 21 update also brings some quality-of-life and balance adjustments, largely in response to the feedback we've been monitoring since our last round of changes on April 16. We're continuing to observe the impact of recent changes and expect to iterate more on WvW systems in future updates.
The health bar for objective lords will now be displayed in the event UI, making their status much easier to track. Pro tip: clicking the lord's health bar in the event UI will make them your active target. Works for PvE events, too!
Siege disruptors will now be unblockable.
We're increasing the base-level and tier 3 supply capacities for keeps by 50 and increasing the amount of supply granted by the Supply Drop tactic by 100 to add some power back to defending.
The Chilling Fog tactivator now heals allied players every few seconds for its duration instead of chilling enemy players.
We're also planning a round of WvW changes for the July 16 release that are focused on scoring adjustments. We'll be back in a few months to talk about those changes in more detail!
Player vs. Player Updates
On June 25, we'll be introducing some quality-of-life and rewards improvements in preparation for the start of the next ranked season on July 2. To add some new build options, we're introducing two new attribute amulets: Heretic (+1,000 power, +1,000 precision, +500 healing power, +500 ferocity) and Tyrant (+1,000 power, +1,000 condition damage, +500 precision, +500 toughness), and adding Ogre and Tormenting runes.
On the rewards front, our goal is to make ascended armor and weapons more accessible in PvP by increasing the number of grandmaster marks that can be earned each season and decreasing the number of ascended shards of glory needed to purchase ascended armor and weapons. We'll also be reintroducing reward track potions and adding new sources for karma from PvP rewards. Finally, like the prestigious colored titles we've added for WvW and endgame PvE, we'll be updating the Champion Brawler title awarded for winning 10,000 rated arena games to a colored version.
In the July 16 update, we'll adjust the frequency of our daily automated tournaments to consolidate teams into fewer events and increase competitiveness. We'll also add a new weekly tournament event on Sunday in each region that features increased rewards. This seems like a good time to mention that we'll also be bringing back the Tournament of Legends event on a twice-yearly cadence—and we'll be back in the near future to confirm the next event date.
We'll also address some long-standing feedback on the Djinn's Dominion map in the July 16 update by making some improvements to the secondary map objective and the associated special action skills.
Skills and Balance Update
Our next set of skills and balance updates will arrive on June 25. We're primarily focused on improving the usability of underpowered skills, utilities, and traits and bringing in outlier builds where necessary. As usual, the Skills and Balance Team will be live on Twitch next Friday, May 24, at noon Pacific Time (UTC-8) to give a preview of the update, and the release notes preview will be live on our forums shortly after. We'll see you there!
Festivals and Bonus Events
Here's the full schedule of festivals and bonus events coming to Guild Wars 2 in the next few months:
June 4–June 25: Dragon Bash
July 2: Start of PvP Conquest Season 42
July 2–July 9: Sunken Treasure Week
July 9–July 16: Dungeon Rush Bonus Event
July 16–July 23: PvP Rush Bonus Event
July 23–July 30: Living World Season 3 Bonus Event
July 30–August 20: Festival of the Four Winds
Don't forget to bookmark our handy event calendar to keep tabs on what's happening in the game!
Aren't You Forgetting Something?
Oh, right. What happens after "The Midnight King"? Well, you'll find out very soon, as it turns out. In the next few weeks, we'll post a development retrospective blog post for Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure that talks about what we learned from the process and how we're taking those lessons forward into our next expansion. Shortly after that, you'll get your first look at what that next expansion has to offer. Between that and everything we talked about above, it's shaping up to be a pretty exciting summer!
As a final note, I'd like to take a moment to extend a heartfelt congratulations to four remarkable individuals who recently celebrated their 20-year anniversaries working at ArenaNet: Tami Foote (Environment Art Lead), Aaron Coberly (Art Director), Andrew "Frosty" Gray (Lead Designer), and Matthew Medina (Narrative Designer). Thank you for your undying dedication, creativity, and passion. Here's to many more years of crafting incredible experiences together!
And to our community, as always, thank you for your continued support. We'll see you in the game!
Josh "Not an Actual Grouch" Davis, Game Director
Super Adventure Festival 2024 Begins Today
Moto is back in Rata Sum, and so is the Super Adventure Festival! Jump into a virtual world, earn baubles, and exchange them for all sorts of retro-themed rewards. This yearly festival is now live and will be available until May 7. You can check out all the details in the full release notes on our official forums.
Super Adventure Festival is accessible to players of any level. Even if you're brand new to the game, you can easily take part in all this festival has to offer! Read on for a quick rundown of the activities you can participate in during this festival and the rewards you can earn.
Where to Go
The Super Adventure Festival is located in Rata Sum. Check your in-game mail for an Invitation to the Super Adventure Festival and double-click the item to teleport instantly to the Super Adventure Box Hub. You can also travel to the Magustan Court Waypoint, which is conveniently located right next to the Super Adventure Box in Creator's Commons.
What to Do
When you enter the Super Adventure Box, you will have a different skill set. The new skill bar will help you navigate this different game mode. While you're inside the box, you won't take damage from falling, and you can't use gliders or mounts. But you'll find that you're much bouncier than you usually are!
There are two complete worlds you can trek through, and two extra gameplay modes that can modify your adventure: Exploration Mode and Tribulation Mode. If you prefer a laid-back adventure, you can enable Exploration Mode, which will give you some assistance traversing jumping puzzles. If you're yearning for a punishing challenge, activate Tribulation Mode...at your peril.
The journey begins in World 1. You are sent on a heroic path to save Princess Miya. Your starting weapon is a stick, but you'll be able to buy other combat options and tools from friendly shopkeepers found in the worlds you're exploring. Make sure to keep an eye out for little wooden doors!
When you obtain new weapons from merchants inside the Super Adventure Box, they'll give you new ways to destroy enemies and objects. You can even use bombs to find hidden rooms packed with baubles.
Bounce your way into a sunny glade, and don't forget to fell every enemy on your way! You'll need all the baubles you can get your hands on. Every time you get hit by an enemy you will lose a portion of your hearts, so be sure to dodge. When your hearts are empty, you'll lose one of your lives. As long as you have lives left, you'll revive at the last checkpoint you reached.
If by chance you have no lives left, worry not; simply purchase a Continue Coin from Moto. Just don't mind the lava.
Rewards
Trade 250 baubles to the Super Adventure Box Trader located next to Moto to obtain the festival currency, bauble bubbles! Weapons, armor, utility items, minis, and many more things are available in exchange for bauble bubbles; talk to the trader NPCs just outside the Super Adventure Box or in the Hub.
There are a plethora of new rewards to earn this year. Add a scepter, pistol, sword, and spear to your collection of Retro-Forged weapons, and complete an achievement in the Test Zone to acquire a Mini Green Ooze. Craft new guild hall items to create your own Super Adventure world for your guildmates to enjoy!
Complete the (Annual) Super Adventure Box Nostalgia achievement to earn Golem-Buster weapon skins and the Powered Shoulders, which fit nicely with last year's Powered Gloves. You can find them in the Achievement tab of the Hero panel under Festivals.
Test Zone
The Test Zone* has undergone some improvements, and Moto is once again inviting players to explore the new area he's been working on! This year, the Test Zone has been expanded, adding new shops, secrets, and achievements for players to uncover. Gourdon the Racing Choya has a new Adventure in the Test Zone as well, and players can unlock a new Magic Bow tool! To visit the Test Zone, pick up the note on the door of the World 3 House in the Hub and follow the instructions. Have fun!
*The Test Zone is presented as is and should not be viewed as World 3 confirmed, either express or implied. Moto, Lord Vanquish, and other residents of the Super Adventure Box will not be held liable for injuries sustained in the Super Adventure Box. Baubles not intended for human (or charr, asura, norn, or sylvari) consumption.
As we all know, fashion is the real endgame in Guild Wars 2®—and we have an update coming on April 16 that should help level the playing field for new and aspiring fashionistas.
After countless requests and much anticipation, the stage is finally set for a revolution in Tyria's fashion scene with the introduction of cosmetic inspection! In tomorrow's release you'll find a new option titled "Inspect Cosmetics" in the context menu (accessed by right-clicking on another player's portrait). Selecting this option will pop open a new panel that allows you to view that player's equipped outfit, weapon, and armor cosmetic appearances and their associated dye choices.
This dialog can also be opened by entering the "/inspect" chat command with another player targeted. You'll notice that some items have been updated with text that outlines how that item can be obtained, and we'll be adding even more source descriptions in coming releases.
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It's important to note that this is a cosmetics-focused feature. Inspection does not give players information about the rarity or attribute selection of any item, nor does it provide details about equipped infusions, runes, or sigils. Additionally, to preserve competitive integrity in the PvP and WvW game modes, cosmetic inspection cannot be used to determine what weapons enemy players have equipped.
Life Gets Better
The cosmetic inspection feature is the latest quality-of-life improvement from the Guild Wars 2 Live Team. Their mandate over the past few years has been to address player problems and introduce improvements to areas of the game, such as the new-player experience, crafting, and group encounters. Here are some of their accomplishments in service of that goal:
The Legendary Armory
The Wizard's Vault
Reintroduction of Living World Season 1
New and refreshed Bonus Week events
Allied player visual-effect toggle
Granular postprocessing options
Character selection-screen background customization
Progress bars for meta-achievements
Guild hall game-mode options
Filtering options in the Trading Post for skins you have unlocked
Recent rework of gobbler items
Sometimes our work on this front is less obvious or impacts the community in a roundabout way—like the work we're doing to improve our development pipeline and tools and the work we're doing to improve the technology that underlies Guild Wars 2, such as our engine.
Our commitment to not just maintaining but enhancing Guild Wars 2 is rooted in our belief that for a game to remain vibrant and engaging, it must evolve. The shift to DirectX11 was a milestone that marked just the beginning of our journey toward technological enhancement. This move was not simply about keeping up with the times; it was a declaration of our dedication to providing our players with an experience that continuously improves.
Thanks to DX11, we've been able to increase the number of armature bones and lighting objects for new models and environments, build full 360-degree skyboxes, and begin using vertex animation (or point-level animation). One of the engine improvements we're working on right now is an upgrade to BC7 texture compression, a significant jump over the technology that we've been leveraging since the launch of the game. This will improve the clarity and fidelity of in-development and future textures, most notably for weapons, visual effects, environments, and creatures. In the longer term, we'll be evaluating the feasibility of upgrading existing, already-shipped textures to BC7 compression, but there are some technical hurdles for us to overcome before we commit.
These enhancements not only pave the way for better visuals and smoother gameplay but also ensure that Guild Wars 2 remains a competitive, dynamic world that evolves with its community. We'll have more developments to share on this front as the team continues their work.
Here's a sneak peek at a new location from the fifth Guild Wars 2 expansion—shipping later this year:
Thanks for reading! I'll see you in the game.
—Josh Davis, Game Director
Preorder the Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure Vinyl Soundtrack
Today we're thrilled to announce an upcoming vinyl edition soundtrack for Guild Wars 2®: Secrets of the Obscure™. This double LP set will be created by Materia Music and released in Q2 of 2024. You can preorder it here for $39.99 USD.
The soundtrack will feature 24 tracks composed by Maclaine Diemer, Bryan Atkinson, and others. The track selections reflect the otherworldly nature of Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure's cross-dimensional locations and antagonists. From the Wizard's Tower to Nayos, the Realm of Dreams, this new lineup of songs is punctuated by dark, heavy music with pounding drums, distorted textures, and snarling vocals, all swirling together in chaotic dissonance.
Additionally, we'll be partnering with Materia Music to make the majority of the Guild Wars 2 soundtrack available on most major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Amazon, and YouTube.
The track names and composers for the vinyl edition soundtrack are as follows:
Side A—16:51 1 - "Secrets of the Obscure" (Maclaine Diemer) 2 - "A Fractured Horizon" (Maclaine Diemer) 3 - "Isgarren the Curator" (Jarryd Elias) 4 - "Strangers Masked in Shadow" (Bryan Atkinson) 5 - "Whispers of the Misplaced" (Maclaine Diemer) 6 - "Memories Forgotten" (Maclaine Diemer) 7 - "The Beast Emerges" (Maclaine Diemer and Bobby Rose)
Side B—18:34 1 - "Amnytas in Peril" (Maclaine Diemer) 2 - "Flesh and Fire" (Bobby Brader) 3 - "Curious Allies" (Maclaine Diemer) 4 - "The Kryptis" (Bryan Atkinson) 5 - "The Wizards" (Maclaine Diemer) 6 - "These Ancient Halls" (Maclaine Diemer) 7 - "Courage and Regret" (Bryan Atkinson) 8 - "Otherworldly Threats" (Bobby Rose) 9 - "Nayos" (Bryan Atkinson)
Side C—16:21 1 - "Malaise" (Jaimee Jimin Park) 2 - "Peitha's Flame" (Maclaine Diemer) 3 - "To Fell a King" (Maclaine Diemer) 4 - "Eparch's Finest" (Bobby Rose and Jarryd Elias) 5 - "Might of the Cosmos" (Michael Paraskevas) 6 - "An Army of Avarice" (Bobby Brader) 7 - "The Bloodied Lord" (Bryan Atkinson) 8 - "A Promise" (Bryan Atkinson)
Side D—16:45 1 - "For the Ward!" (Bryan Atkinson) 2 - "The Realm of Dreams" (Bryan Atkinson) 3 - "Drum of the Hunt" (Bryan Atkinson) 4 - "Vertigo" (Bryan Atkinson) 5 - "Maelstrom of Brawn" (Bryan Atkinson) 6 - "From Dusk" (Bryan Atkinson) 7 - "Marching Orders" (Bryan Atkinson) 8 - "The King's Paragon" (Bryan Atkinson)
TOTAL - 1:08 :32
WvW World Restructuring Beta Feedback and Future
Hello, Mist warriors,
This is Cecil Armstrong, the Competitive Producer for Guild Wars 2. We recently completed a World Restructuring beta event, which ran from January 12 to February 2, so let's talk about it!
We're pretty happy with the results and data gathering provided by this beta: uncovering some startup data errors, increased queue issues, and some beta-specific reset and UI errors. In addition, we gathered great feedback from community members about their experiences and have some good areas for improvement identified. We've already set to work on those fixes and improvements, so let's get into some of the details.
The Issues
Team Placement (or "Where am I, and who are all these people?")
We uncovered several individually small issues that compounded upon one another and led to incorrect team placement. First, during the EU reset at the start of the beta, we discovered that our servers had failed to read the new team-creation data and fell back to its last known good data: the teams from the last beta. We identified the issue pretty much immediately and restarted the matchup with the correct data. Unfortunately, some players were presented with the option to select their team when the wrong data was active, and that choice prevented them from being fixed in that reset. Ultimately, our engineers came up with a clever solution that allowed us to identify the affected players and fix them programmatically, but we couldn't get it done until early evening Pacific Time, so most of our EU players had already logged off for the night.
After resolving that, we could dig into the still-unknown reports. We identified a trend of people who told us they selected their guild close to the lockout deadline and started exploring that thread, revealing our second major issue. The analytics that track guild selection had an error and stopped reporting during the night before the lockout, effectively preventing any selection from making it to the server for an extra day. This was an easy fix once it was spotted, and now we've got some safeguards in place to spot the issue if it were to occur again.
The rest of the issues in this category occurred very rarely, and some are still being investigated, but we also caught a couple of places where the system was working as expected but felt broken. The first is in the case of an inactive WvW guild. Our system has a method for removing guilds and players from the team-creation data if they don't participate in WvW for an extended period. Normally, this won't affect you if you have a WvW guild selected, as it is very likely someone else that selected that guild has played WvW recently. If no one with the guild selected has played recently, everyone in it gets sorted as a solo player. We are looking into solutions for this.
The other edge case we saw affected players who had transferred worlds to a different region. If you normally play in NA but had transferred to EU during the lockout, you would be sorted into a team on EU. If you then transferred back to NA, you wouldn't have been kept with your WvW guild.
The combination of all these issues meant a lot of players were not kept with their guilds as expected, especially in the first team creation. I want to give a huge shoutout and thanks to Rubi, Roy, and the amazing members of our Customer Service team, who spent a lot of time getting players manually moved to the right teams to minimize the impact of these issues. This is the first beta for which we had a proper solution for manually changing teams, and we certainly put it through some rigorous live testing.
The Queues
The dreaded "queue issue" or "Map Is Full" error struck again during this beta. With the increased population due to the very popular WvW Rush and World Restructuring beta, we saw occurrences and reports of these issues skyrocket.
While this is sort of a known quantity and ongoing investigation in WvW, we did find some new variations of this issue that are specific to the World Restructuring system. The team is exploring why that might be and seeing if it can inform the larger queue-issue investigation as well.
UI (or "What you see is what you sometimes get.")
Beta resets have had some odd UI errors, and while we solved many of them, there were a couple that still affected us this time around. Notable reset errors were:
Team names could be incorrect on the WvW Mist War panel
Players could be unable to join WvW via the UI or portals
Thankfully, these have a simple workaround and are fixed by relogging, but they still led to reset frustration for lots of players. We also discovered an issue in which players that had set themselves to invisible status would not see the proper UI for their WvW guilds. While this issue was visual only and the server was still getting the proper data, it likely caused people to be misplaced in team creation due to the confusion. Luckily, all these errors have somewhat similar root causes, and we have fixes prepared for them.
The Feedback
Despite the issues, the beta was very successful in many ways, giving us tons of data and great player feedback. Thank you all for sharing your experiences with us to help us improve the World Restructuring system! I want to quickly address some of the major feedback topics.
Some Matchups and Time Zones Felt Unbalanced/Unorganized
This was a mixed experience. There has been a lot of discussion about the balance of specific matchups, time zone coverage, and the distribution of experienced commanders (especially open tags). I am very glad that we received so much feedback in this area, as it was the primary goal of this beta. Our new team-creation algorithm was utilized for the first time, and the new criteria are working as expected.
The goal of this system is to create the most engaging matches possible, ensuring there is a good balance of player and commander activity throughout the matchups and across time zones. We certainly have improvements to make with how our criteria are used to create balanced teams, but initial data and feedback shows us moving in a good direction.
Language Barriers
Many players in our EU community experienced issues communicating with their teammates due to the heavy mixing of international guilds and players. With communication being so critical to a good WvW experience, this is a major area of improvement for us. This is challenging to solve without breaking down the balance aspects of the team-creation algorithm. We don't have a timeline or solution nailed down for this yet, but we are investigating ways to mitigate the issue.
Loss of Server Communities
Several players have expressed a feeling of loss of community with the World Restructuring system. While we understand that this departure from the longstanding WvW server system will have some negative impacts, World Restructuring provides a regular redistribution of players that is critical to the long-term health and balance of the game mode. We are aiming to provide tools and options for you to create and maintain robust communities within the new structure.
Queues Are Bad
We hear you! This was a major issue for some teams. During this first week, this was heavily impacted by a population surge from the WvW Rush event, but even in later weeks we could see some significant queue times on certain teams. We're looking into ways to reduce queue pressure in prime-time slots while protecting balance in lower population times.
Many players have also pointed out that long queues led to an increase in AFK players; a vicious cycle. We are investigating better ways to clear inactive players from the maps to reduce this inflated pressure on queues.
Of course, both of these issues were also made worse (and significantly more frustrating) by the "Map Is Full" errors we discussed above, and that investigation is a top priority for us.
Fun Facts
During the World Restructuring beta, I was paying special attention to commanders and saw a lot of extra people tagging up!
Unique Commanders: 6,236
Commanders were tagged for an average of 4.7 hours during the beta
Average weekly commanding hours increased by approximately 26% during the beta
Earlier this year, an issue caused us to disable gliding in WvW for a period, which ended up being a sort of impromptu rules change test. Many of our players certainly felt the impact, as you'll see below.
35,546 players died of fall damage while gliding was disabled
This averaged 5,359 falling deaths per day; a 94% increase over the normal daily average
The Future
With this beta wrapped up and lots of work yet to come, we want to talk a little about our future plans.
Better Information in More Places
This is a system with lots of moving parts, data, deadlines, and player input. In an effort to make that information more accessible and apparent, we're planning several UI and API improvements. We don't have a definite timeline on these yet, but we will share updates as we have them.
UI
Adding Next Team Creation and Next Lockout Deadline to guild/WvW panels
Adding guild roster indicators for players who have chosen the currently viewed guild as their WvW guild
Making the WvW Team Selection panel information visible but inactive when you have an assigned team, allowing players to see what teams their contacts and guilds are on
API
Adding Next Team Creation times for each region
Adding Next Lockout Deadline
Adding WvW guilds' assigned teams
Adding WvW guilds' next team
Similar to our World Linking forum posts, this would allow guilds to know what team they will be assigned at reset as soon as the team-creation data reaches the server
Adding an API key option for a player's selected WvW guild
Adding an API key option for a player's assigned team / next team
Sixth Guild Slot
Many players were frustrated by the feeling of "losing" a guild slot to properly organize in the World Restructuring system. We always want to encourage players to build long-lasting and meaningful communities in our game, and this made that more difficult. To remedy that, we have decided to add a sixth guild slot when World Restructuring is turned on full-time. This new guild slot will have all normal guild functions, and it will be available to all players, regardless of their WvW participation.
Region Transfers
During the beta, we got quite a few questions about the future of world and region transfers with the removal of home worlds. We wanted to let you know that region transfer functionality will still be available via an updated character selection interface. In addition, we will be setting the gem cost to transfer regions to a flat 500 gems, as we no longer need to have variable costs based on world populations.
Next Beta
While the beta was mostly a major success for the team, we are concerned about the new version of the queue issue we've discovered, particularly the evidence that World Restructuring is worsening it. With the "Map Is Full" error being such an extremely negative player experience, we aren't comfortable enabling the system full-time before we resolve it. Investigating this issue is the number-one priority for the World Restructuring team, but we don't have an expected timeline to solve it right now. We will share more information on this issue when we can.
Once we find a solution to this queue issue, we'll have a clearer picture of what the next step is for turning World Restructuring on full-time. Ideally, the next time we turn on World Restructuring, it will stay on.
Thanks for Participating!
Your involvement in our World Restructuring beta events has given us the ability to test and tune the system to support the future of WvW. We've got lots of exciting stuff coming and lots of hard work ahead, but we couldn't have gotten here without your participation and support.
For now, I'll leave you with a quick reminder of our current priorities. The Future Goals section below specifically references things that we know we want to do but could be deprioritized or significantly delayed as other important issues come up.
Top Priority
New World Restructuring "Map Is Full" error investigation
Adding Next Lockout Deadline timer to in-game UI
Add 6th Guild Slot
Future Goals (No Timeline)
API integrations for WvW and World Restructuring information
Additional guild & WvW interface improvements
Better mixed-language team experience
Improved detection of inactive players
Spring into Some Seasonal Sales!
Spring is in the air, bringing longer days, warmer weather, and incredible discounts for some fan-favorite Guild Wars 2® products! Our first three expansions, Elder Dragon Saga—The Complete Collection, and the Elder Dragon Saga Collection are all heavily discounted from now until March 21, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7).
In addition to the Guild Wars 2 sales detailed below, we’re also discounting the original Guild Wars® and all its expansions and editions by 75%! Now is the perfect time to experience the game that started it all. Fill your Hall of Monuments and unlock bonus items and titles that transfer to Guild Wars 2!
Experience the entire dragon cycle saga from beginning to end with Elder Dragon Saga—The Complete Collection. This bundle contains an entire decade's worth of content! Included are Guild Wars 2 Living World® Seasons 2–5 and the first three expansions: Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns®, Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire®, and Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons®.
If you haven't already purchased one of the expansions in the collection, you'll also get two Level-80 Boosts—allowing you to instantly level up two characters and jump straight into our latest content—and two Shared Inventory Slots to easily share items with every character on your account. Players who already own one or both expansion products will have already received the associated Shared Inventory Slots and Level-80 Boosts at the time of first purchase.
This collection is available now at a 50% discount until March 21. For players only interested in the expansions, the Standard and Deluxe editions of the Elder Dragon Saga Collection are discounted by 60%.
Expansions 1 and 2—Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns and Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire
Unlock mounts, gliding, and more with the first two expansions for Guild Wars 2. This package grants you access to a new profession, the revenant, as well as eighteen elite specializations to change the way you play. Experience the joy of movement with the best mounts in MMOs.
This expansion bundle is available now at a 75% discount!
Expansion 3: Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons
The future of Cantha is now. The dragon cycle that has sustained and blighted Tyria for ages is collapsing. Mortal hearts and choices will define this moment in history—and echo in the future forever. Unlock new elite specializations, Masteries, and more, including access to fishing and skiffs.
The Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons expansion is available now at a 50% discount!
"The Realm of Dreams" Arrives on February 27!
Hello, Guild Wars 2 community!
Here's a look at what's coming to Guild Wars 2 over the next few months.
February 27—"The Realm of Dreams"
Next week we'll be releasing our next major update for Guild Wars 2®: Secrets of the Obscure™, the second of three planned updates that deliver the expansion's full story experience. This update introduces three new story chapters that follow hot on the heels of the events of "Through the Veil" and pull the wayfinder deeper into the unfamiliar world of Nayos and the Kryptis society.
This update brings a slew of features and content additions for Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure, including new weapon proficiencies for all nine professions, the tier-one Obsidian legendary armor set, the legendary relic, the Temple of Febe Strike Mission challenge mode, expanded Astral Ward Masteries, two new Convergences bosses, and the sky-chak striker ranger pet.
It also includes refreshed rewards for the Wizard's Vault, complete with new seasonal objectives. We're also introducing some changes to the Wizard's Vault daily and weekly objectives to address player feedback. Some objectives have had additional options added so that they can be completed in multiple ways, and some of the less popular objectives have been shelved for the time being. The intent of these changes is to improve the overall feel of the objective selection, reduce friction with required times for global-timer events, and reduce the number of expansion-only objectives that caused players to have different weekly objective lists.
March 19—Systems Update
Postprocessing Graphics Options: We're introducing more granular options for the postprocessing graphics setting. Currently, there are only three options available for postprocessing: "Off," "Low," and "High." Each of these settings controls hidden options such as bloom, color grading, color tint, distortion, light rays, and selection outline. These sub-options are now checkboxes in the Options menu, allowing you to pick and choose which aspects of postprocessing are displayed.
Skills and Balance Update: Our next major balance update aims to improve quality of life for some existing builds like deadeye, bring some unviable builds like power-based harbinger into the meta, and improve some underutilized traits and utilities. The preview for this update can already be found on the official Guild Wars 2 forums.
Player vs. Player—Expanded Champion Achievements: The Champion achievements that track wins for each profession are being expanded with three additional tiers at 500 wins, 750 wins, and 1,500 wins with new titles for each. As an example, engineer will be able to earn the Legendary Genius title at 500 wins, Fabled Genius at 750 wins, and Ultimate Genius at 1,500 wins. These achievements will take already-earned progress into account.
World vs. World—Expanded Realm Avenger Achievements: At last! The Realm Avenger achievement, which tracks player defeats in WvW and awards the Ultimate Dominator title, has been expanded with 9 additional tiers at 250,000 increments. Each tier comes with a new variant of the Ultimate Dominator title that reflects the number of players that you've defeated (e.g., Ultimate Dominator II). These achievements will take already-earned progress into account.
World vs. World—Lord Update: We're modernizing the loadouts of castle, keep, and tower lords with the addition of a new channeled healing skill that aids objective defenders in combat, giving the lord a more active role in battle. Attackers will need to keep a close eye on the lord and break their defiance bar to minimize the support they're able to provide. As a note, this is currently a stretch goal for the update and may need to shift out to a future update.
Mastery Change—Noblesse Oblige: With the March 19 update, the Noblesse Oblige Central Tyria Mastery, which increases revive speed and removes downed penalties on successful revive, will no longer remove downed penalties in Strike Mission and raid challenge mode encounters. This will help maintain the intended difficulty level of these encounters by reinstating some penalties for ignoring encounter mechanics.
April 16—Super Adventure Box Returns
Moto and his famous invention, the Super Adventure Box, return to Tyria! The 8-bit game-within-a-game will receive updated rewards and some additions to the World 3 Test Zone.
Looking Ahead
Our final quarterly update for Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure is just a few months away, bringing with it the story's finale, new foes to lock swords and shields with, a new fractal dungeon and challenge mode, new relics, tier two of the Obsidian legendary armor set, a Wizard's Vault rewards refresh, and more! And then our next expansion announcement—and its subsequent launch—will be right around the corner. 2024 is shaping up to be another great year for Guild Wars 2.
We'll wrap up today with one final legendary tease located below! As always, thank you for your ongoing support.
We'll see you in the game.
New Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback Update
Hey, everyone!
My name is Taylor Brooks, and I am a combat designer here at ArenaNet. Today I'll be discussing the Guild Wars 2®: Secrets of the Obscure™ new weapon proficiencies, which will allow each profession to use a new weapon type. Specifically, I'll be talking about the feedback we got from the beta we did in November, as well as the changes we'll be making to the weapons when they launch in a couple of weeks. I'll be going over high-level details in this blog, but we will be sure to give the full details in our livestream this Friday, February 16 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8). Now, let's talk about the new weapon proficiency beta!
Overall, we were happy to see people use the new weapons in all areas of our game! Some weapons were big hits, but it was also clear there were a few that could use some tweaking or just didn't hit the mark altogether.
Ranger
Maces were a smash over the beta weekend, being utilized by every ranger elite specialization in different ways. It was clear that maces had a strong kit, but we also knew there were ways it could be improved. They were missing an interaction with your pet like most ranger weapons, and so the first change we made was to have Oaken Cudgel apply a heal-over-time effect to your pet. This will help them stay in the action with you!
Next, the untamed ambush Rampant Growth lacked a supportive element that other skills on main-hand mace have. It will now heal nearby allies when used, so you can continue to hit things hard with your friends.
Lastly, much of the feedback we got about maces was on the Force of Nature mechanic. It didn't flow quite right, and it was hard to achieve in natural gameplay. We are lowering the stack threshold to trigger it from 6 to 5, increasing the duration of Nature's Strength, and reducing the time you are tapped out. You'll be growing large faster and more frequently; what's not to love?
Thief
Thief gaining access to axes spun up a revitalized version of condition-based deadeye builds in PvE along with seeing use on power-based thief builds in competitive modes. Unfortunately, axe projectiles were a lot of things—"consistent" was not one of them. They had a bad habit of following terrain in weird ways, often completely missing your target. We'll be updating the logic of all axe missiles to work more similarly to normal projectiles as well as increasing their velocity.
Additionally, the combination of shadowstepping to a target and then pulling the axes to yourself made using the axe-dagger dual skill unnecessarily harder to use. We'll update its functionality to be like the axe-pistol dual skill, so the axes will go toward your target. We'll be keeping an eye on axe after these functionality improvements to ensure it stays a competitive option with other thief weapons.
Warrior
The staff is breaking ground as warrior's support weapon, and while it landed strong, it had its own pain points. The largest piece of feedback we received was about the unwieldiness of Line Breaker. Sometimes ally targeting is not a good match for a skill, and this is one of those cases. Line Breaker will no longer be a targeted skill and will now be ground targeted. This will help warriors use this skill on the fly at a moment's notice.
Support warriors also noticed that their adrenaline gain was substantially lower than a traditional warrior's. We'll be adding additional adrenaline gain to Valiant Leap and Defiant Roar to help warriors use burst skills when they want to. We know support warrior is still a budding archetype, and we plan to add more trait support for it in future updates.
Revenant
Scepter gives support revenants the sustain-focused main-hand weapon they have been waiting for. This weapon was well received, but there are some big ways in which its usability could be improved. The concept of charging the skills with your autoattack chain proved to be a mechanic that didn't add much to the weapon's gameplay. It was too easy in PvE, and it was too unrealistic in competitive modes. We've removed this mechanic and adjusted the skills accordingly.
Unlike warrior's Line Breaker, we felt ally targeting could improve revenant's Blossoming Aura skill. You'll now be able to place it on an ally, sacrificing the damage for guaranteed support. Additionally, instead of gaining strength when you land your autoattack chain, it will build up strength over time. You'll now be able to reactivate this skill to detonate it early, with the effect scaling based on how long it's been cooking!
Otherworldly Bond has also had some big adjustments. We felt like the play pattern of an upkeep weapon skill did not pan out the way we liked, so the skill now has a fixed duration and a fixed energy cost. Like Blossoming Aura, its effects will now scale over its duration instead of being charged with the autoattack chain.
Mesmer
Rifle gives builds like support chronomancer the tools to be a potent healer in addition to their unique tools. We were happy to see positive feedback around the weapon, but—as with everything—there were tweaks we could do to make the weapon feel better to use.
Journey is seeing a reduction in its casting time and its time from casting to impact, and it can now properly be re-aimed with the instant casting setting. Additionally, the delay in the explosion on Abstraction is being removed. These two changes together will help your support be snappier and more responsive.
We also saw common feedback that Phantasmal Sharpshooter felt like a weak point in the kit. We'll be enhancing them by having the phantasm fire faster and strike in an area on impact. We'll also give this skill two charges in PvE to allow more liberal use. Lastly, we realize that the portal functionality of Singularity Shot can be harder to utilize in non-organized play. We added a flash effect when the portal is opened to catch other players' attention and hopefully alert them to take it!
Elementalist
Pistol came loaded with an arsenal of skills to give condition-based elementalist builds new toys and enhance weaver combinations even further. The strongest feedback was that a lot of the animations felt too similar. We've substituted some of the simple shooting animations with other spellcasting animations to help vary what the weapon feels like. We've also sped up some casting time and missile velocities to help keep the weapon feeling fluid.
Another note was that it became hard to tell which bullets you had active when your screen was busy. Elemental bullets will now display an icon on your active effects bar to help in those moments when you can't see your character clearly.
And to finish off elementalist, we have the most important changes: Piercing Pebble will now pierce!
Guardian
Dual pistols came out guns blazing, performing well in all game modes as a new option for condition-based guardians. Last month, we updated the Radiant Fire trait to promote a healthier play pattern for the archetype as well as give off-hand pistol more space to be featured in those builds. We'll continue to monitor how it all shakes out to make sure both off-hand pistol and torch have uses. As for weapon adjustments, Jurisdiction will charge faster and can be detonated sooner. This should help the skill feel smoother and help to hit enemies in melee range.
Necromancer
Swords have a strong theme and interesting concept, but unfortunately—due to some clunky animation timings and low numbers—they left players hungry for more damage. We'll be increasing the power coefficients on the weapon across the board in PvE, with similar adjustments for PvP.
Additionally, we'll speed up some casting times and reduce the aftercasts on some skills so that the weapon can better match the flow of the game. Like the change to thief's axe, the autoattack chain projectiles will have their logic updated so they can hit targets on terrain more consistently.
The other major change to the weapon is a rework to Devouring Visage and Consume. The design of the skill proved hard to pull off. If the projectile goes too slow, it will struggle to hit moving targets, but if it goes too fast, players will struggle to recall it when they want to. Devouring Visage will now throw the orb at your target, exploding on impact to damage and fear enemies. Consume can be used after that to drain the strength of targets hit by the explosion, inflicting damaging and weakness while granting you might.
Engineer
Short bow aimed to be a support weapon that could let your creativity flow as you designed your future master plans. This weapon was not a fan favorite to say the least, and we knew that it needed a large makeover to get it to a spot where it matched the caliber of our other new weapons. We looked over all the feedback, and common themes arose.
Engineer's short bow was commonly criticized for being very slow; between casting times, delays, explosions, and pulses, it was too hard to support your allies in a timely fashion. Additionally, the radii for short bow skills had to be small due to performance concerns. The small area made the skills more difficult to use, especially when you wanted your allies to stand in the area for the best effect.
We also received feedback that the short bow did not offer the right tools to make it more appealing over the other weapon options for an engineer. All these issues culminated in a poor showing over the beta weekend, leaving us with many ideas on how it could be improved.
To start, we agreed that short bow skills could be sped up on multiple fronts. The casting time and delay on impact were reduced, and now short bow skills do not have to be detonated. When an arrow lands, it will immediately explode.
We have also lowered the amount of pulsing components on the weapon so that you do not have to stand in an area for a prolonged amount of time to get the best value. We were happy with the concept of chain reactions and augmenting your abilities, and we have reworked this mechanic to better fit the new short bow. When you use a short bow skill now, it will mark an area for a brief duration. The next short bow skill in this area will consume the mark and be augmented based on the first skill. With all these changes, it allowed us to expand the radii of short bow skills and play with the shapes of the skills. Finally, we added some shiny new toys to short bow, such as ways to apply protection and aegis.
As I mentioned before, these are the high-level changes coming to the new weapons when they arrive in the next release for Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure. For the exact numbers, smaller changes, and a preview of our March balance update, be sure to catch our Twitch livestream this Friday, February 16 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8).
Until next time, I'll see you in the Mists!
Lunar New Year 2024 Begins Today
Greetings, citizens of Tyria!
It's time for the first festival of 2024, so head over to Divinity's Reach and enjoy the annual Lunar New Year celebration. During the Year of the Dragon, you can enjoy fireworks displays, participate in games, sample delicious Canthan food, and earn new rewards. This yearly festival is live now and will be available until February 20.
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! The Wizard's Vault also has new special objectives directing you toward all sorts of Lunar New Year activities. Earn that astral acclaim and collect your rewards!
You can check out all the details in the full release notes on our official forums. We also have a new event calendar where you can stay informed about our upcoming game updates, bonus events, festivals, Gem Store sales, and more! Keep your eye on it as we expand it with more information in the coming months.
Read on for a quick rundown of the activities you can participate in during this year's Lunar New Year festival and catch a glimpse of the rewards you can earn.
Rewards
This Lunar New Year has many new rewards for players to collect and earn. The annual meta-achievement will reward players with their choice of weapon from the new Fortunate weapon collection and a Dragon Descendant's Helm. Don this new helmet and embody the draconic fashion of your dreams! Check the Achievements tab in your Hero panel and navigate to the Daily Lunar New Year and Festivals sections for more information.
There's also a new dragon-themed backpack that has two different tiers of ferocity. Open Lucky Envelopes for a chance to find the Lucky Dragon Lantern or the Lucky Great Dragon Lantern. The envelopes contain other treasures as well, including the brand-new Lucky Dragon Speargun, Lucky Dragon Short Bow, and Lucky Dragon Hammer! These new weapons are also available for purchase for gold and Essences of Luck from the kodan vendor Sparking Stone in Divinity's Reach.
Remember that Lucky Envelopes are affected by your account's magic find attribute! Increase your magic find for chances at better rewards when opening them. Lucky Envelopes can contain additional Essences of Luck, valuable trophies that you can sell to vendors for coin, and a chance at the special rewards listed above.
Lastly, there are a few new guild decorations available for crafting and the new Mini Amnytas Stormscale to acquire from the Lunar New Year vendors.
Where to Go and What to Do
The Crown Pavilion in Divinity's Reach is your hub for Lunar New Year festivities. Check your in-game mail for an Invitation to Lunar New Year and double-click the item to teleport instantly to Divinity's Reach.
Celestial Challenge
Speak to the Celestial Challenge Attendant at the Crown Pavilion in Divinity's Reach to begin the Celestial Challenge, a series of activities that will require you to take down enemies, race through checkpoints, perform feats of jumping mastery, and more. The more activities you successfully complete during the event, the greater your rewards at the end.
Dragon Ball Arena
Speak to Finola at the Crown Pavilion in Divinity's Reach to enter the Dragon Ball Arena. This dodgeball-like PvP game mode is a race to the finish, with the first team of five players to reach five hundred points claiming victory. Collect power-ups throughout the arena to gain access to new skills, zip around the arena with zip pads and jump pads, and master the art of the Dragon Sphere.
Mount Racing
Race around Divinity's Reach! You don't need to have any mounts unlocked to take place in this race—a nearby rental service is available to rent a raptor for just 10 silver.
Firecracker Lighting
Speak to the firecracker-lighting NPC at the Crown Pavilion in Divinity's Reach to start this seasonal adventure. Use your mastery of the world to quickly navigate through the streets of Divinity's Reach and light all the firecrackers! Gliding, mounts, anything goes—just don't use any waypoints, or your progress will be reset!
