Remember how excited everyone was to get the Guild Wars 2 summer roadmap out of ArenaNet earlier this year? Prepare to get excited all over again because as of this morning, the studio’s released a fall and winter roadmap, including an infographic and anniversary details. Communication, we dig it!
First, the roadmap itself. We already knew about the elite spec beta events; we’re expecting three more in September, October, and November, along with a WvW alliance beta in a month too. Expect the usual run of festivals as well as continuing freebie episodes.
The DX11 upgrade is still on deck too.
“The DirectX11 integration will go into beta testing on September 21. Players can opt-in through the in-game options menu, and are encouraged to leave feedback and report any issues via the Guild Wars 2 forums.”
And as for the WvW restructure?
“We have a lot of work to do before then. On August 31, we’ll be rolling out some substantial updates to our server infrastructure—specifically, the servers that make World vs. World possible. This new server code is going to run silently in the background for a few weeks, allowing us to stress test the system with live player data. Ideally, you shouldn’t notice anything different in your WvW gameplay during this time. We know you’re eager for the gritty details about world restructuring. We’ll be posting a dedicated blog on the feature well in advance of the first beta event, which will include an up-to-date overview of the system and our plans for the betas.”
If you’re just returning to the game after time away, make sure you log in to claim Daybreak – that’s the freebie episode this week.
Next, the infographic has a few juicy nuggets, including the fact that the game counts 16M accounts. Guild Wars 2’s ninth anniversary lands tomorrow, which means the oldest toons will start getting their anniversary gifts sooner; those’ll include cake, new dyes, weapon packs, boosters, and the usual assortment of goodies.
MOP’s Colin points out that in the next-to-last slide above, there’s a silhouette of crouching character who looks a bit like a blindfolded, spiky-armored Revenant – might it be a teaser for an elite spec?
Finally, there’s new information out on the skiffs and fishing mechanics coming in End of Dragons next year – trailer inc!
