Guild Wars 2 studio ArenaNet promised more frequent communication in its recent post-End of Dragons roadmap, and today it delivered on the promise.
Highlights include an update on the Jade Sea meta event, which many players have been unhappy with since launch (us included). ArenaNet cites internal statistics showing that the final boss was downed only around 15% of the time on launch week, but after some incremental changes, that success rate has risen to 60%, though of course without harder numbers it’s unclear whether it was these changes or the likelihood that players who had already failed stopped trying to win that are responsible for that percentage increase. The devs are also taking a look at End of Dragons meta event rewards and adding a new Void infusion to the Dragon’s End drop table.
If you’re a World vs. World player, you will be happy to know that ArenaNet is finally attempting to address the bug that can cause players to lose their place in the queue. It also promises more forthcoming information on a feature of the long-promised world restructuring that will allow guild alliances to enter matchmaking together. Also, your jade bot will once again be able to scavenge from your player kills!
If you are waiting for the newer, shinier DirectX 11 implementation to come out of beta before giving it a try, May 10th will be the day you want to flip that switch. Many players have seen some nice framerate improvements already, so be sure to keep an eye on that.
Finally, ArenaNet shared that the entire studio has been given this week off to rest and recover from the stresses of launching a new expansion, as part of its renewed commitment to work/life balance. Don’t worry, though, the employees will be back in the office in time to deliver the first chunk of remastered Living World Season 1 chapters next week.
Is the original Guild Wars more your speed? You may be interested to know that ArenaNet has recently noticed an uptick in players of the classic MMO, with the Lunar New Year event prompting a concurrency three times more than the 2018 peak. This has prompted the studio to reopen its Korean datacenter, after having hosted Asian players in North American datacenteres since 2010.
