Guild Wars 2

The veterans from Guild Wars 1 will remember some simular areas with effects the way I mean. And the most noticable effect in Guild Wars 2 that behaves this way is in the Snowblind Fractal, where the chilling snowstorm drains increasing bits of HP the longer our character suffers from the cold.

Some very farfetched ideas came to mind that give both benefits and penalties. My thoughts are that these effects could be introduced to the open world, sPvP, Living World Content, Fractals, or simply everywhere. Let your creativity join me (Dev’s invited)

My examples:

Morning Sun: The sun is still under the clouds and blinds all that look in its direction, causing 5% of attacks to miss. Elementalists suffer no penalty and gain a 5% damage buff while in Fire Attunement.

Swampwater: Swiftness only lasts half duration. Take damage over time and conditiondurations last 15% longer for both foes and allies. Necromancers suffer no penalty and gain a 5% damage buff.

Asuran Facility: Asura players gain 1 statpoint per level towards all stats while in this area.

The Brand: Every time you attack or us a utilityskill. You have an 8% chance it fails and you are randomly dazed, confused, tormented or knocked down for 3 seconds.

Murky Waters: Your Aquabreather is unreliable. Generate stacks over time. At 25 stacks, you die. Resets when you surface.

Charr Territory: Charr have a 5% damageboost and gain 5 seconds of haste every minute. If an ally dies, Charr gain 25 might, fury and swiftness for 5 seconds.

Corrosive mist: Flora in the vicinity release a corroding substance that penetrates your armor. Suffer from increasing stacks of Torment and Vulnerability the longer you stay near them.

Old mechanics renewed, may introduce some new challenges.

The only problem is that these would become tooo annoying.
Morning Sun for example is one that is likely to come up FREQUENTLY and with your proposition Elementalists would benefit from it heavily.

These kind of effects work in really specific situations where they apply equally to everyone – e.g. the Fractals.

The only place I can recall encountering these in GW1 were dungeons/elite dungeons like The Deep and Urgoz’s Warren.