With less than a month before Janthir Wilds opens up new zones and housing content, Guild Wars 2’s devs are now turning their promotional attention to the expansion’s new raid – though technically, it will launch not in August with the first chunk of the update but rather in November with the second.
“In the past, raids were self-contained instances with their own stories, built for 10-player groups,” ArenaNet says. “Our goal with the upcoming raid is to allow players to experience the story in a way that works best for them. The raid will be integrated into the main storyline, and players who might be hesitant to join a raid group will be able to enjoy their own personal narrative. The 50-player version is built as a Convergence, similar in structure to those found in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure. Those participating in the 10-player raid will find the story to be more heroic, with a focus on the formidable enemies they face rather than the NPCs involved in the narrative.”
The goal for the studio is to “[maintain] a sense of continuity” between the larger and smaller raid versions; instead of trying to “bridge” the content with strike missions, it’s just going to give raiders the content they want. Moreover, the convergences in this expansion are going to be much harder than past convergences, so don’t go in expecting a cakewalk.
That said, the team won’t commit to more raids beyond this one.
“Raids require a significant amount of development resources, but only a small subset of players engage with the 10-player group instanced content, which is part of the reason it has been five years since our last one. This new raid serves as a test to see how we can support raids moving forward.”
In other words, if you love this stuff, better play it and show them!
