Last night, ArenaNet’s Mike O’Brien and 16 other members of the Guild Wars 2 live team hopped on Reddit for an AMA coinciding with the launch of A Crack in the Ice, the third episode of the third season of living story content for the game. Here are some of the highlights:
- Massive revamps for the old dungeons are considered not worth the effort and are not on the table.
- The team considers the Auric Basin multi-looting “exploity” and ruinous to the ecto market; they’re working on a solution.
- That’s separate from the latest round of “insider trading” issues, which is under investigation. “We’re trying to be as hands-off as possible with item prices, recognizing that players ultimately drive item prices,” says Mo, but he also is giving “early warning that [Anet will] introduce a way to farm leather in a future release.”
- The team is monitoring the Nightmare Fractal careful to determine how it could rework old ones and build new ones.
- Anet is in “the final phases of testing and balancing the encounters” of the next raid. “About half of it is ready to ship right now, but the other half still requires some additional work.”
- There’s no new news on legendary armor progress.
- All of the maps being worked on for the living world are brand-new and built from scratch, the team says, which is part of why it takes the team about six months to make an entire episode. “I’m an explorer at heart (and in the Bartle taxonomy) and I’ve really enjoyed exploring this map too,” O’Brien says of the latest explorable.
Finally, if you were curious (or furious) about the recent lockbox changes, Monetization & Platform Strategist Sarah Witter explains:
“We’ve received a great deal of feedback internally and on our forums that were pointing to it needing to be revitalized. Through those conversations there was a ton of ideas and you’ll be seeing some of them through the seasonal updates of the chest. As for the Braham’s Wolfblood Outfit this specific outfit is available through the chest and through the Gem Store, and internally at least one person received it on their second roll making it cheaper than it would have been if they had purchased it through the gem store. FWIW, I had similar luck with the Grasping Phantom Glider, I must have used 60 keys before I received it as an unlock and I was getting other rare items. The nice thing about the chest revamp is that you still do receive a guaranteed item, a convenience item, and an account progression item and the chance for other rare items.”
