Guild Wars 2

Was looking for something else, stumbled upon this by accident: Devon Carver on the Future of World vs. World. This was posted on June 5th 2013, so almost 2 years (22 months) ago. You may want to sit down and pour a glass.

Not going to sit here and bash the WvW team, they have made some good changes since this was posted (account bound WXP, commander color change, siege build sites), but reading some of these 2 years later is pretty discouraging. Highlighting the passages that stood out to me:

Commanders are a major part of the battle, but right now their tools for commanding are few. Guilds are an important part of strategic gameplay as well, but they aren’t rewarded much for taking an active, positive role. These are things we want to improve on because we feel that not only can they increase player investment in the outcome of any particular play session or match, but they simply make the game better for everyone.

Our goal is to continue to encourage organized large groups while giving small, tactical groups the necessary tools to put a dent into larger mobs of less-skilled players. We think that it can be fun to run around in a zerg — but we also think that the game should be about tactical acumen and skill more than sheer numbers.

We’ve also been tossing around some ideas to introduce variety into the matches on a weekly basis. Just imagine the possibility of rule changes that come in for a week and then disappear into the Mists. We’ll go into more detail about this in the future, but we think it will be a big boost to players who want to see some more variety.

-Note, they did try this during the ‘Sneak Attack’ event. It’s just a far cry from rule changes on a weekly basis.

Arrow carts should be deadly for players who get caught beneath their hail of arrows, but there should be a viable way to counter them with other siege — we don’t think that “MOAR arrow carts!” should be the answer to every situation.

Thoughts? I’m cautiously optimistic that HoT will roll out with changes that address some of these, but I’m still frustrated by the fact that ANet could have made this blog post today and most of these issues would still be 100% relevant.

I believe that the 2nd and 4th point will be addressed with the expansion. I can only hope for a surprise about the other 2. Maybe even a feature update while we wait for HoT.

I would recommend not getting your hopes up for any of this happening as part of the expansion. WvW is already getting a new map, and it’s very likely that the (as far as I know) relatively small WvW team has had their hands full with the new map, and will not be providing any other changes.

Expect routine bugfixes and possibly some slight balance changes to certain aspects of the new map, but outside of that, I’m not terribly optimistic when it comes to 2 year old promises.

Not sure if you have been playing since launch but wvw (and this forum) are a ghost town compared to what they used to be.

Anet’s priorities have changed.

I think anet did everything 2 years ago but they dont give it to us