Guild Wars 2

So we have mini-games, and we have SPvP.

SPvP gets Heart of the Mists. How about something specifically for Jumping Puzzles? I’m talking a little zone that queues you into a random jumping puzzle with other people. Instead of traditional player-vs-player where you try to kill each other, you instead race each other to the end of a JP. This would be a great way to introduce new JP’s, and there are even some variations of my idea below;

1. Completing a JP on any character on your account “unlocks” the JP in the hub. If a score of people queue for random JP and you do not have the JP unlocked that they are inside, you will be told in the interface that you cannot do the current JP until it is unlocked (name of the JP will be included in this message)
2. Skills and traits do not apply to JP’s in this fashion, that way everyone is on equal footing.
3. Titles and Jumping Puzzle-themed armor skins (things that make you look more aerodynamic or something) are the reward for doing the challenges
4. Weekly “Jumping Puzzle Tournaments” where players complete 5 random JP’s in a row, with the top 3 places chosen the same way it would in Mario Kart.
5. The JP hub itself is a training ground for JP’s. You can wander around it and practice on a number of different JP mechanics you’ll see in the puzzles themselves, such as strong-winds, disappearing platforms, etc.

I think this would be a great way to introduce new JP’s, keep track of completed JP’s (out in the world), get people interested in doing more JP’s, and reward people for doing great in JP’s. I personally love JP’s and am disappointed to hear from ANet that they will be prioritizing them far less than they currently do in the future because players “don’t show enough interest”.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Added in #5.

People on the forums will whine that anet made a zone dedicated to people who just like JP’s.

“How about those of us who hate JP’s?” they will say

1. Sounds like it should be in the suggestion forum rather than here
2. Not a bad idea, however I’m not sure how it would implement. Seems a lot of queuing for something already available in open world. It would also spread population even more.
3. Would these be new and exclusive JPs, or existing JPs?

To expand the idea to a more functional and realistic level, I’d like to see Activity lobbies. Not necessarily with all the competitive tools that sPvP has, but the lobbies where players and/or guilds can organize teams and just kind of hang out in it. Rotating maps is fine, or even being limited to the planned activity rotation would be fine. Maybe allow people to convert custom arenas to Activities instead of providing them by default.

Now, within those Activities, I certainly wouldn’t mind more things like Sanctum Sprint or the Mad King’s Clocktower…

Vol.5241:

People on the forums will whine that anet made a zone dedicated to people who just like JP’s.

“How about those of us who hate JP’s?” they will say

I don’t think that is a valid reason. That’s like saying “they made a hub for fractals which is specifically for people who want to run dungeons!” or “they made Heart of the Mists which is specifically for people who like SPvP!” – and then using it as an excuse to not have it.

Invictus.1503:

1. Sounds like it should be in the suggestion forum rather than here
2. Not a bad idea, however I’m not sure how it would implement. Seems a lot of queuing for something already available in open world. It would also spread population even more.
3. Would these be new and exclusive JPs, or existing JPs?

Oh its definitely a suggestion I want to submit, but I wanted to flesh out the idea a bit more with other players input. By my description, we don’t have this available in the world so far. Competitive JP’s (which don’t involve killing each other), actual races, an appropriate reward system for the activity, etc, would be a new situation. Currently we just have the open world JP’s which according to ANet people aren’t that interested in. Probably because their irrelevant rewards, the annoyance of getting to them, and the practical impossibility of setting up any sort of racing event around them.

There would probably be room for exclusive JP’s, but the original intent was just to make all the numerous JP’s we currently have available – in a non-skill/trait environment.

Corian.4068:

To expand the idea to a more functional and realistic level, I’d like to see Activity lobbies. Not necessarily with all the competitive tools that sPvP has, but the lobbies where players and/or guilds can organize teams and just kind of hang out in it. Rotating maps is fine, or even being limited to the planned activity rotation would be fine. Maybe allow people to convert custom arenas to Activities instead of providing them by default.

Now, within those Activities, I certainly wouldn’t mind more things like Sanctum Sprint or the Mad King’s Clocktower…

I could see a lobby/hub for mini-games and JP’s mixed, but I think the cities/maps themselves should be the lobbies for organizing parties. I wouldn’t want to see JP’s get mixed into HoM, because the Mists are for battle – and also technically where WvW takes place. Something themed more to mini-games and JP’s would be preferable, and wouldn’t result in overflows at HoM.