Guild Wars 2: New systems team, outfit vouchers, PvP updates, Revenant overhaul, and anniversary sales

One of my big grumps with Guild Wars 2 and plenty of other MMORPG cash shops is the time-limited items. The stuff I want isn’t always available when I have gems to spend – and vice versa. The new series of vouchers available today in the cash shop, however, should allay most of those frustrations, as you’ll be able to pick up a voucher – pretty cheaply! – and exchange it for past releases rather than log in every week and hope your day has come.

The downside? While there are gobs of outfit, weapon, and glider skins on the lists, not every past item is there. RIP, Hexed Outfit and your awesome drippy hat.

That’s not all that ArenaNet rolled out today. In a forum post, the studio laid out a new plan for communication between its teams. “There’s a new team in town with a lot of old faces: the Systems team,” Gaile Gray writes.

“The Systems team mashes together the Skills and Balance, Player versus Player, World versus World, and Rewards Teams. Combining these teams will help to us create more cohesive content and make the most logical changes to Guild Wars 2 while reducing the chances that any particular part of the game will be negatively impacted when there are game-wide changes. The members of the old teams are now sitting in the same area with one another, like one big family composed of gleeful charr, modest sylvari, bashful norn, ornery humans, and whimsical asura. This means that there is greater communication and sharing of knowledge between everyone involved.”

A forum chat on the systems team is currently ongoing (Reddit has plenty of grouchy opinions on it already, of course).

As for the game’s content itself, yep, ArenaNet has some fresh plans there: It’s kicking off PvP League Season 13 next week on August 28th, and that means a bunch of skills and balancing changes coming along for the ride, including a hefty revamp for the Revenant, specifically its Herald elite spec. And it’s not just a mechanics update: “In revamping the herald traits, we themed it more closely to the compassion of Glint, who sought to shield humanity from the Elder Dragons and sacrificed herself toward that end. This left us with three distinct themes: Assisting humanity. Unifying a group of champions. Channeling her gift of prophecy.” Revs are gonna want to check out that whole post.

The game is in the midst of anniversary season; expect continuing sales, a birthday bash on Twitch next week, and birthday gifts to elder characters. Both Path of Fire and Heart of Thorns upgrades are 30% off right now too.