Guild Wars 2

Raids 2.0 please don’t call them raids, for the purpose of this post I’ll call them Onslaughts

Here’s how I envision something raid like playing out in GW2. I’ll describe the envisioned experience and then provide bullet list.

I’m level 80, I’m running around Forstgorge Sound. I’ve done all personal story but I see a little orange star with glitter (looks identical to my personal story markers expect it’s orange). I run up to it and I’m prompted to “Enter Onslaught ‘Turbulent Waves’”. My party members can also choose to enter (just like dungeon instances work as far the instance entry mechanic goes).

Once inside the instance I see I’ve been grouped with a party of 10. The other players on the typical face icons I usually see, they are sPvP style, little white markers and scaled to not steal too much screen real-estate.

The instance begins. It will last for 2-3 hours over a chain of six events each lasting 20-30 minutes and each event concluding with a chest leading up to the final chest at the end of the chain. The events in chain involve very large bosses (scale of Claw of Jormag) So that’s how I envision raids working in GW2.

What I’ve just described at first sounds a lot like dungeons and to an extent it is. Here are some key differences

• This feature would take place over an entire map (e.g. Frostgorge Sound) requiring players to move great distances as they follow the six events that chain

• The instance would only be open to max level characters

• The content would be designed for a group of 10 and allow a group of ten to be in party

Add one of these to each zone map (not just the level 70+ maps, but one per map). Publish a release schedule and release, revise all “onslaughts” on a three month schedule with a goal to eventually have a new one each month (these could cycle so that eventually every October you have the same set of onslaughts. People could look forward to upcoming months knowing their favorites would be cycling around again. It would be a similar mechanic to what you did in GW1 with Holiday events, but your version of raids would follow this.

That’s how I would design it.

I actually think this idea with some work and input from Anet could be huge

wow, this actually sounds very cool! I’d love to play onslaughts!