Over the weekend, Mike Ferguson, ArenaNet Systems Designer, responded to a question on the forums regarding areas in Guild Wars 2 with super-fast respawn timers. “Is the team looking at adjusting any of the respawn rates?” the original question asked. Here’s the answer:

We are trying to adjust respawn rates in areas where the non event related respawns are just too fast. We know it can be a problem and we’ve already slowed down some spawns, but we also know there are more areas out there we need to look at.

If we know the map area and creature(s) involved we can usually find the spawns pretty quickly, so if you know of problem spots please give us as much information as you can and we’ll look into the spawns in those areas whenever we get a chance. Thanks!

So, if you notice any areas with mob respawn timers that simply seem too quick, make note of the area, and provide ArenaNet with a bit of feedback.

Originally posted by Mike Ferguson (Source)

---

This data was collected from 8:00PM Sept 14th to 9:30PM Sept 18th. I believe the time zone listed is UTC, but I’m not 100% sure about that.

There can be up to four lines on each chart, one for each map that world is playing on. A line is only present for a map if it was full and there were people waiting in a queue. The map abbreviations are:

EB – Eternal Battlergrounds
RB – Red Team Borderlands
BB – Blue Team Borderlands
GB – Green Team Borderlands

Be sure to pay close attention to the vertical axis on each chart as the scale changes from world to world. Some worlds have hundreds of people queued for all four maps while other worlds might peak at a hundred in queue on one or two maps.

Unfortunately I just realized I didn’t put the world names on the chart. A chart’s filename matches the world it represents, so you’ll need to look at the end of the url when looking at a chart (or before clicking on it) to see what world it represents.

We thought these charts would be useful information for people to see, as it helps illustrate why some worlds have much longer waits than others. Hopefully it will also help some people decide to leave some of those higher population worlds for one of the worlds with smaller (or no) queues, which would reduce the queue pressure on the overloaded world and help provide more manpower for the smaller world.

Some other information we gathered from this timespan:
- Almost 30% of the total players who logged into the game queued up for WvW
- About 3% of the total players who logged in and queued never got in.

We’re completely ecstatic about the first number and not happy at all about the second. We’re looking at a number of short term and long term solutions that should help make that second number go down even if the first one goes up. As we make progress on those solutions we will keep you updated.

You can find all the graphs in the link supplied above. The graph shown above is the highest populated server (HoD) in the game. Kaineng appears to be the lowest where there is almost never a queue, and when it is, it’s 20 people or so.

Mike Ferguson, systems designer at ArenaNet, had a few words to say about the current state of WvWvW yesterday in an official news article. In it, he talks a bit about Guild Wars 2′s queuing system for WvWvW, and how to make the most of it. He also discusses matching and the timing of matches, and how those times have chanced since headstart.

Here’s a snippet:

One reason some people experience long wait times is that we are still seeing extremely high concurrency rates, which makes queues longer on worlds that have a large number of players focused on WvW. We also discovered a bug that was allowing people to queue up and enter maps ahead of players who had been queued for much longer. Please check on our forums for an announcement when the fix has been implemented. This should fix the problem of some people staying queued for hours while other people can queue up for the same map and enter within a matter of minutes.

Make sure to check out the full news article to read the rest.

Originally posted by Mike Ferguson (Source)

---

Hey everyone, sorry to not post about this sooner, the last few days have been a little hectic and I wanted to verify a couple things first about the issues we’ve been seeing with the queues before posting anything.

As many of you know, it is possible for someone to queue up for a map after you and get in first. We’re trying to get that fixed as soon as possible but unfortunately we still need a bit more time to solve the problem. We will definitely keep you updated when there is any news on our progress.

I have been checking the queue sizes and wait times for each matchup, and there are a couple interesting things I’ve observed so far that may help reduce queue times for some of you.

Worlds at the top of the rankings can have queues that reach multiple hours (particularly for the Eternal Battlegrounds map), but most of the worlds in the bottom half of the ranking quite frequently have open spots in at least a few maps, and the lower ranked the server is, the more likely it is that there are spots available. I’ll be posting the up to date world rankings shortly.

When there are queues for every map, the wait time for borderland maps tends to be shorter. Enemy team borderlands tend to have the smallest queues for just about every team so you may want to try entering those maps first before attempting to queue for the Eternal Battlegrounds. If you are just entering the queue for the battlegrounds and not checking the borderlands maps first to see if they have space open, you could be missing out on playing in the Borderlands while you wait for a spot to open up for you in the Battlegrounds.

Make sure to continue reading.

That being said, while we still have worlds that consistently have open spots for more players, it would be fantastic if some players out there could help us spread the WvW population out a bit so we don’t have a few heavily stacked populations facing large queues on some worlds while many other worlds still have room to support people.

While I know this isn’t what most of you wanted to hear, I also want all of you to know that we are still investigating numerous other options we can take to help resolve some of these ongoing queue issues and we’ve been discussing them internally every day to see what would provide everyone with the best long term solution, but we wont have anything ready on that front for quite a while.

Ideally, we would see some people move from worlds with extreme queue times to worlds that need additional people and start building up active wvw communities there as well. Having more worlds with heavily active populations in WvW will be a very good thing for the long term health of the game, and spreading out the population will help reduce the queue times on the worlds with the longest queues.

While queues do indeed suck, the fact that they are this bad is because so many of you are trying to play and that is actually one of the best possible problems we can have at this point. It may sound silly, but it means that there are quite a few of you out there are enjoying the game and we’re thrilled that so many of you are out there trying to fight for your world. We will do our best to make sure you can.

Finally, I would like to ask everyone to post any additional queue comments to this thread only from now on and refrain from creating additional threads about it.

Thank you all for your understanding and patience.

Looks like Mike Furguson was hanging out in the Heart of the Mists yesterday during the stress test and decided to answer some questions. Tibincrunch took some screenshots and posted them on Reddit yesterday. Thanks to him and the Reddit Community!

Mike Ferguson was hanging out in the Heart of the Mists and a bunch of people were asking questions so I decided to take some screenshots of his answers. Some of this stuff may already be known but I tried to ask some questions that were unconfirmed.

Keep reading for the full Q&A transcript.

Q: Are we allowed to report players who are afk in the matches?
A: Report afk’ers if you so desire

Q: Will there be birthday presents? Or is this under wraps still?
A: We have lots of plans for live updates, nothing we can talk about though.

Q: Players being AFK in sPvP was a problem in BWE3 for me… maybe a timer?
A: We just added an afk timer since BWE3

Q: Will there be more options in character creating at launch?
A: I don’t think we are adding more character creating options, but it’s possible.

Q: How long does it take to drop combat?
A: I think it’s about 15 seconds to drop combat, but we might have different values for PvE/PvP

Q: Any plans for a 1v1 duel feature? It would be a great way to test out builds and mess around
A: We’d like to add dueling at some point, probably not before launch though.

Q: Mike, will you ever add a crosshair type feature since we can aim projectiles without targets?
A: You can already aim projectiles, just don’t have anything targeted and it will fire in the direction you face, probably not getting a reticle though.

Q: Any chance of getting a guild tax system implemented?
A: Guild tax has been talked about, don’t know what it’s status is at the moment.

Q: I’d actually want to second the question about HD Screenshots. Are they in the pipeline and getting back eventually, or scrapped for good?
A: I haven’t heard anything about HD screenshots, I will definitely let people know that they are being requested… frequently

Q: Mike, have you seen the Oculus Rift VR headset on kickstarter? Any chance this would work with GW2?
A: Seen it, don’t know if it would work. Its possible, we have 3D working with the nvidia glasses.

Q: Which profession is in dire need of help Mike?
A: I think Necro and Thief are the ones they are worried about most, but it changes from day to day depending on what they change.

Q: Is PVE difficulty back the way it was intended to be this stress test?
A: We are still looking at PvE difficulty, we’d like it to be close to BWE2 difficulty instead of BWE3

Q: Are there plans to add more servers at launch? or is this the final list?
A: We will add more servers as needed, this is close to the final list for launch though.

Q: Mike, the third male Sylvari face ( horizontally ) had its bioluminescence changed for the worse. Is this a bug?
A: I assume so.. I have seen a couple posts on it already.

Q: Is the skill lag in the game ( atm ) just because of the stress testing?
A: Skill lag is generally from servers lagging.

Q: Any confirmation on the voice pitch slider during character creating at launch?
A: No Idea.

Q: Is there a chance that weapons might be dyeable release or later?
A: I know some can be emblemized with your guild emblem, I don’t think dyes can be applied to the though. Its something we might be able to look at post ship though.

Q: Can we get the preview window to display weapons in our hands, and not hiding in our cloaks?
A: Preview is still being worked on, I will mention it to the programmer working on it.

Q: Currently, what profession needs balancing the most?
A: The skill guys are looking at all professions, I think they are really only happy with Warrior at this point, but I am not too sure, skill aren’t my thing.

Q: Do you know how long the 24 hour WvW battles will happen at launch, before the 2 week battles start?
A: probably a week or two… we just want the servers to get some data before we turn them on so we don’t have 2 week mismatches all over the place

Q: Are you guys still raising the caps ( WvW? ) for launch?
A: We are still optimizing.. It will hopefully go up before launch, we found a couple things over the last day or two that should help performance.

Q: Are queues in WvWvW working as intended or more work to be done yet?
A: WvWvW queues are working better, but they still need a little love.

Q: What are the indented caps per map/per server in WvWvW?
A: As many as we can fit in there… still a work in progress.

Q: Is there any way to tell if your queueing for WvW or not?
A: We don’t have any queue status indicators yet, trying to get them in for launch.

Today, Mike Ferguson, a Systems Designer for Arenanet, did an AMA on Reddit and we’ve brought you the transcript. For the full Reddit thread, you can find it here.

Mike Ferguson:
Hey folks, please try to keep question as short and simple as possible, I want to answer as many questions as possible and the longer the questions are, the less I can answer. I can only type so fast

Question:
Would be great if you could answer the top voted list. It covers a lot of questions which this subreddit has already discussed upon.

Question:
Morning Mike,
Does WvW have any systems in place to deal with the leaching in PvP that occurs in other games?

Mike Ferguson:
Our event system is being used all over wvw and if you don’t do something that counts towards that event you dont get any rewards for it.

Question:
That’s nice but what about people that are just sitting afk and filling a spot in the server. Would they be kicked out so someone who will actually play would have the chance to join?

Mike Ferguson:
We have idle timeouts so anyone just afking will eventually get booted, i dont know what the length of that timer is though.

Question:
Will you guys test WxW during every march/april beta weekend?

Mike Ferguson:
Yes.

Question:
A few questions about leaderboards:
How does the WvW leaderboard work?
Is it cumulative for the 2 weeks?
Does it only show players that are currently active?
How are players rewarded for outstanding contributions, like being first in damage? (e.g., title, HoF)

Mike Ferguson:
@Tirochi If by leaderboard you mean the scoreboard, it is updated every few minutes and it is cumulative for the 2 week battle. Scores reset every two weeks and the scoreboard is visible anywhere in the game. We will have some WvW achievements, but we aren’t quite ready to reveal those yet

Question: *
Thanks, Mike.
Can you give us some details on how the score is calculated for the players? For example, how much weight is given to kills vs. resurrecting vs. building a siege?
EDIT: I wasn’t referring to the world’s score, but to the individual player’s score in a leaderboard that would show what their contributions have been (healing done, damage done, buildings razed, etc.)

Mike Ferguson:
Ahh ok that makes more sense. We already track a large range of values for things just like that, so we just have to get a system in place to track and display them for users.

Question:
Are there pets to tame in WvW? If so, are all the pets available in PvE available in WvW?

Mike Ferguson:
Yes rangers will be able to find pets to tame in WvW.

Question:
These are some questions compiled from /r/guildwars2. And some answers! Isn’t Mike Awesome?

Server, technical, and general questions
You mentioned visiting other worlds in the blog post, is this for PvE content or just PvP content? Could someone on one server ask friends from another world for help with an event? Some clarification
Can you only join guilds on your home server?
Will server change fees be cash or in game currency? Answered
Can you switch between regions on one account (EU to USA etc)? Answer 1 Answer 2
Are you able to share more on the server structure and network backbone yet? Any possibility for EU to play with USA but still have optimal latency? *Effect Lag Answered *
Is there any in game support for voice chat? No
Can you queue and enter your server’s WvW from an overflow server? Answer
Will there be WvW on overflow servers? Answered
What kind of name recognition will there be between worlds? Are names reserved across worlds? Unknown

Rewards
Will there be personal (unique) rewards from WvW? E.g. titles, skills, traits, gear, etc. Answered Clarification
Is it actually viable to level up by only participating in WvW or will it be significantly slower compared to PvE? Do we need to leave the Mists to complete skill challenges to unlock utility skills and traits? Answer1 Answer 2 Answer 3 Answer 4 Answer 5
Does the winning server get additional bonuses at the end of the 2 weeks? Answer
How long do bonuses last? Answer
Will there be ways to see which characters and guilds are doing the best in WvW? Will we get to see the ranking ladders? Answer1 Answer 2

WvW Command and Tactics
Are maps for each world the same in WvW? If not, will there be a map rotation? Answered
What formal game functionality will there be for Command and Control in WvW? Things like parties forming into warbands, and WvW chat and command chat, and some way of designating leaders of warbands, and an overall leader. And what other kinds of organization tools are there in WvW? Answer 1 Answer 2 Relevant Answer 3 Answer 4
Any info on the iOS/Android apps that will related to WvW? Unknown
How does vision work on the battle map? Does a player from that server need to be present for vision of a fight occurring or is it universal? Answer 1 Answer 2
Will enemy names show up in WvW? Will there be kill spam/death spam? Answer1 Answer 2
Are there limits to obtaining certain types of equipment you receive from supply? For example could a server slowly stockpile siege golems in a base until they have one for everyone? Answer
Can siege weapons be moved? Are there any range indicators on siege weapons so we can build them at optimal range (and on other abilities for that matter)? Answered
Internally, what tactics were more common when testing WvWvW? Answer

DAOC questions Answered
Has there been any consideration of the group vs. group sub-game in WvW? 8v8 was very popular in DAoC. Groups of 8 skilled, well-coordinated people ran around fighting other such groups. They also fought larger groups of less coordinated people.
Any plans to implement something similar to Darkness Falls (a large open pvp area that has mostly pve content, and can be locked for your own pilfering by success in the RvR overworld)?
In DAoC a cool aspect of RvR was the ability of someone with high Stealth to climb walls. Is there going to be a similar skill for say, a Thief, to infiltrate WvW structures and harass/gather information? Stonemist for example looks big enough for this to be really viable.

Mike Ferguson:
Absolutely, we are building the objectives to try and give our 5 man groups something to do as well as accommodating larger assault forces.
Not currently.
We don’t have the ability to climb walls. We’ve talked about possibly allowing thief the ability to steal something that could let them through the teleporter gates, but we haven’t decided if we actually want to add that yet. It is obviously something that we’d have to be very careful about so we don’t want to just add it and have it break the game.

These are answers to the three DAoC questions.

Mike Ferguson:
Ok gonna try and hit as many that I personally know about..thought the camelot questions were an entirely different post (boo early morning grogginess!)
Is there any in game support for voice chat? – not currently
Can you queue and enter your server’s WvW from an overflow server? I’m not certain as we haven’t finished implementing the wvw part of that system, but I would guess that is going to be possible.
What kind of name recognition will there be between worlds? Are names reserved across worlds? Don’t know, sorry!
Does the winning server get additional bonuses at the end of the 2 weeks? Possibly, but we aren’t quite ready to reveal that.
How long do bonuses last? As long as the battle is going on. When a battle resets, so do your world bonuses.
Any info on the iOS/Android apps that will related to WvW? Sorry, I dont have any info on that.
How does vision work on the battle map? Does a player from that server need to be present for vision of a fight occurring or is it universal? You can see the scoreboard from anywhere in the game and the scoreboard has a chart that shows who owns what, but for exact breakdowns you have to be in WvW to look at the map.
Are there limits to obtaining certain types of equipment you receive from supply? For example could a server slowly stockpile siege golems in a base until they have one for everyone? You have to have the supply to build all those golems, but if you can stockpile that much supply and want to build a rampaging army of golems, go for it! Isaiah has done it a few times in beta already, and while it looks awesome, it’s surprisingly not that effective since golems are super slow.
Internally, what tactics were more common when testing WvWvW? Well people almost always starts out in a zerg when they first enter the game, and as they gradually learn more they start breaking off and taking side obejctives to choke supply out of keeps and towers. We’ve seen flanking maneuvers, massive assaults with quick building of siege , small squads raiding camps, it’s really been quite amazing seeing what people are coming up with!
Whew…hope that covers it!

Question:
Thank you so much! The whole AMA is beyond awesome, we’re so grateful for all the clarification.

Mike Ferguson:
You’re very welcome, glad to be here!

Question: *
Mike’s reaction to seeing this when considering his dinner plans later tonight

Mike Ferguson:
One hour left to signup for beta! Have YOU signed up yet? https://beta.guildwars2.com/

Question:
Will NPCs be aware of WvW? Will they talk about whether your server is doing well or victories/loses?

Mike Ferguson:
They should, we just spent the last few weeks writing a whole bunch of text for that exact purpose

Question:
Server stability, What can you tell us about the power of the servers that will help with hundreds of people firing off skills?

Mike Ferguson:
Over the past weekend we had many fights where large groups of all three teams were fighting each other and we didnt have any server crashes!

Question:
This “home server transfer” fee – is it ingame currency or real world money?

Mike Ferguson:
We haven’t finalized our plans for what that fee will be, if there will be any ‘amnesty’ period for new accounts, or what currency that fee will require, but I can assure you that we are examining and discussing all possible options and as soon as we have a firm plan in place we’ll let you know more!

Question:
Please allow limited transfers for free (like one every 90 days or something) and then offer additional transfers for a reasonable fee.

Question:
I imagine being defeated in PvP is going to be a lot more frequent, will you allowed PvP gear to be damaged as well?

Mike Ferguson:
Yes, it is important to remember that WvW is a PvE area where it just so happens that three servers meet and can fight for territory control. This is our open world PvP so the rules must be the same because it is all part of the same game economy. Items and gold can be looted from players so if you die you will have to repair, but you will also be earning currency to offset those repair costs. You will not be looting actual items from enemy inventory, rather getting drops from a loot table like you would from a mob.

Question:
is it possible in WvW to wear a cloak with guild emblen?

Mike Ferguson:
We dont have cloaks, but you can put a guild emblem on your armor and weapons!

Question:
Besides cross class combos what else is in WvW that would give a small organized group an advantage against an unorganized zerg?

Mike Ferguson:
A smaller group can fan out and take objective on other maps or in areas that the zerg isnt covering. Zerg are great for facerolling people, but WvW is won by having more objectives, so while the zerg is baning away on one keep, your smaller groups can fan out and take all the resource camps to keep the zerg from having any supply sources.

Question:
I’ve always liked how in Ragnarok Online the guild banners were displayed in the cities whenever a guild managed to hold one of the castles, will there be a similar feature for WvW in Guild Wars 2?

Mike Ferguson:
Yes, you will be able to display your guilds emblem on banners in objectives you hold.

Question:
How did you integrate underwater sections in WvW? I really want to fight people underwater, but I want to make sure there will be other people there.

Mike Ferguson:
There is a quaggan mercenary camp in each borderland map that can play a pretty cirical part of assaulting or defending the keeps in that map as gaining favor with the quaggans lets them build weather control stations that shower the nearest keep with healing rain for your allies or zaps your enemies with bolts of lighting. I assume that’s enough to make people want to fight there

Question:
I remember someone saying that in WvW there are PvE elements to it so can we expect to see mobs or even bosses making problems for each of the servers?

Mike Ferguson:
There are definitly mobs, and there will be some Bosses and PvE events out in WvW.

Question:
Will certain abilities be restricted or altered while participating in WvW game play?

Mike Ferguson:
Hopefully not, but we always reserve the right to change things for balance reasons.

Question:
What kind of loot do we get for killing other players?

Mike Ferguson:
The same loot you get from killing mobs. I’ve gotten quite a few rare drops from players in the beta already

Question:
I’ve heard that any/all loot you get is scaled for your level.
Confirm/Deny?

Mike Ferguson:
Confirm

Question:
Also, for the record: Will all four maps be different? Or are the maps which we currently saw the final composition?

Mike Ferguson:
Those are the maps we will launch with, the borderlands will be the same map for all three worlds.

Question:
Someone suggested it could be a good idea to give some different textures for each map (e.g., one is summer/green, another is autumn/yellowish, third one is winter/white). Was there any discussion in that aspect?

Mike Ferguson:
yeah it’s almost as much work as building an entirely new map so we just can’t do that unfortunately

Question:
Official term: WvW or WvWvW?

Mike Ferguson:
Internally it’s always WvW

Question: *
I would love to see some handy cam video of someone going around the ArenaNet offices asking people to pronounce their version of WvW
Collectors Edition – Make it happen.
EDIT: Grammar.

Mike Ferguson:
Hey folks, wanna see something REALLY cool?? Take a look at how many people have signed up for the beta!

http://cot.ag/xczZ3o

Mike Ferguson:
Uh oh…we may have just crashed the server..whoops!

Question:
I am concerned about the experience coming from WvWvW. Will I be able to get the same type of experience flow to level up my toon like in PvE, for instance, if there is not enough people to kill (especially during odd hours in the night) or I am alone playing?

Mike Ferguson:
Our goal is for the rate of XP, and loot gain to be similar in WvW and PvE. It will never be exactly the same but it should be close enough that you don’t feel disadvantaged by playing one vs the other.

Question:
I saw in some beta vids that once you are building a trebouchet it is destroyed pretty fast. Is this still being looked into or working as intended?

Mike Ferguson:
Balance is always going back and forth. We did bump up Trebuchet hit points after beta based on feedback, but you will absolutely be encouraged to defend your siege weapons.

Question:
Can you earn skill points to unlock new skills in wvw?

Mike Ferguson:
Yes, you can progress any aspects of your character through WvW.

Question:
will the game engine be able to support hundreds of players in the same area?

Mike Ferguson:
We’ve had hundreds of players in the same area already, and even as we speak our programmers are hard at work on making that experience even better!

Question:
Is there alternative way to attack a fort? Like accessing a fort from underwater. And is there any underwater forts/outposts or anything like that?

Mike Ferguson:
Every objective has multiple ways in. Some of many different gates, while others have a single gate, but each objective has multiple walls that can also be knocked down to break into them.

Question:
welcome Mike. Could you please explain what a “Squad” is?

Mike Ferguson:
@Myramar Squads are a way for larger groups of people to band together for a common goal. Squads are led by a commander, and that commander has the ability to talk to everyone in their squad in a chat channel that only the commander can talk in. Commanders can also place waypoints on the map that are viewable by all of their squad members. These waypoints tell the squad to do things like’ attack here’, ‘regroup here’, and ‘bring supply here’. Squads are extremely useful in WvW, but they are also useable in PvE and are the perfect thing for taking down our epic world bosses.

Question: *
What is the size limit for a squad, and how is the commander chosen? How is the squad formed?

Mike Ferguson:
The commander is self appointed. We have an item that people purchase for gold that gives the ability to turn on the Commander function. When you become a commander, anyone not in a squad will see the commander icon over your head and can select you, right click on your portrait and select ‘join squad’. Also, when someone is following a commander, you can right click on their portait to join their squad and follow the same commander. I dont believe there is a limit to who can be in a squad, but that might not be true, I’ll have to check with the programmer who implemented the system.

Question:
Is it a consumable item or can you use it multiple times?

Mike Ferguson:
One time use. You buy the item and use it to enable the ability to become a commander. After that you can select if you want to be a commander at any time!

Question:8 points
A point of clarification then: You need to buy 1 of this item for each character, correct? It is not account wide, is it?

Mike Ferguson:
It is character based, not account based.

Question:
Hi there. I have a question regarding dodging.
When dodging, do you have to roll out of the way of the incoming attack? i.e. roll left or right to avoid an arrow, or would it be sufficient to simply roll backwards due to any dodge action simply negating the incoming attack?
What I am trying to say is, is dodging about avoiding collision or simply knowing WHEN to dodge and not WHERE to?
Thank you!

Mike Ferguson:
Both. Dodging does make you 100% evade attacks while you are doing it, however because positioning is so important in the game it is crucial to make informed decisions about the direction you dodge as well.

Question: *
Will there be personal rewards from WvW? E.g. titles, skills, traits, gear, etc. DAoC had realm abilities, but realm abilities give long-term players advantages other than experience/talent over new players. Partial Answer 1, Partial Answer 2, Partial Answer 3
Will there be any PvE areas controlled by WvW? In DAoC, Darkness Falls was a large PvE dungeon with good drops for all levels. Only the realm that controlled the most keeps could enter the dungeon, but anyone could stay in the dungeon until they died and couldn’t be revived. Answered
What kind of name recognition will there be between worlds? Will enemy names show up anywhere in WvW? Will there be kill spam/death spam in WvW? (Yes, please!) Answered, Partial Answer
Will there be ways to see which characters and guilds are doing the best in WvW? On the DAoC website, there were weekly rankings of the people and guilds that had done the best that week. Example measurements: most realm points, most realm points per player, most realm points per death, most solo kills, etc. Partial Answer
Has there been any consideration of the group vs. group sub-game in WvW? 8v8 was very popular in DAoC. Groups of 8 skilled, well-coordinated people ran around fighting other such groups. They also fought larger groups of less coordinated people. (Clarification) Partial Answer

Question:
We all saw that enemy players are currently listed as generic invaders, and some are turned off by that. Will there be a toggle option for showing our name if we want to?

Mike Ferguson:
There’s been a lot of discussion about seeing enemy names in WvW. While I certainly understand the reasoning behind the request to see enemy names, we are fairly firm about not showing names of the opposing teams. I think of it this way, in a war people dont introduce themselves before trying to kill each other. When you are fighting in the mists for your world, you are in the middle of a giant war against two opposing forces who want nothing more than to take everything you own and kill you as many times as they possibly can. That guy who just shot you is not Bob the Engineer, he’s the enemy.
Not showing enemy names in WvW also helps players that are less pvp-oriented feel less threatened about venturing into the battle because seeing enemies as anonymous ‘invaders’ creates a sense that opponents won’t be able to recognize them and pick on them because of their lack of skill in a fight, so they in turn feel more embolded to go out and fight in the first place. Not showing names also makes it so people can feel as if they can ‘hide’ in a fight if need be, but still be around to help out. That’s a pretty critical part of making WvW feel more inviting for people that would normally never think about playing PvP in any other game.
We’ve heard “I usually dont PvP, but I love WvW” again and again from people in our beta, so even though showing names might make for a more competitive pvp environment, we’d much rather create a game that is more welcoming for people that don’t normally play the more hardcore PvP games. If you want to see enemy names and get to know the community of people you are fighting against, competitive PvP is the place to get that sort of thing in Guild Wars 2. WvW is the place where you fight with your friends and show your might against a faceless never-ending horde of enemies. It’s not about taking names, it’s about taking back that tower and claiming it for your guild so it can wave your flag right in the enemies face!

Question:
Ok, I guess we can live with that given the sheer awesomeness of WvW.
BUT, guild tags are still displayed, right? So we could at least have some GvG metagame skirmish if we do our research.

Mike Ferguson:
Guild tags are still displayed.

Question:
and how does the guild system work with the guild i read that guilds can own keeps etc but there gonna b alot of guilds so how can you obtain a keep.

Mike Ferguson:
Each guild can only claim one location, and if you’ve seen the map of WvW, you can see that we have a lot of locations you can capture and claim. When you assault a location, we track how many people are participating in that assault and the guild with the largest participation gets a minute after the capture where they are the only guild that can claim that objective.

Question:
With the largest participation, is it just the number or the most percentage of the guild participating?

Mike Ferguson:
it’s based on active participation. If you bring all of your 20 member guild and another 1000 person guild only brings 15 people to the fight, as long as all 20 of your people kill guards or help take the location in some fashion, you will get first priority for the claim.

Question:
Will particles animations be reduced as mass skill usage in massive fights would be a maelstrom of confusion!

Mike Ferguson:
Our graphics programmers and tech art team are working on that issue right now! We’re well aware of the effect soup that can happen in large fights and it’s something we’re going to do our best to address.

Question:
Will WvW have any system to prevent “deathmatches” (mass mindless PvP fights) to make players focus in the objectives?

Mike Ferguson:
if you’re just deathmatching you aren’t gaining any score for your team. Score is only gained by holding objectives, capturing orbs, and killing dolyaks. So sure, you can deathmatch if you really want to, it just doesn’t help your world’s standing in the battle at all.

Question:
If a guild owns a keep in WvW, will they be alerted if their keep is under attack? Also, will there be a mechanism in the game to quickly travel to your own keep to defend?

Mike Ferguson:
We will be adding alerts to game that will communicate when an objective your guild owns is under attack. There is no quick travel though, you have to hoof it there and hopefully make it before the enemy breaks through and captures it!

Question:
Hey Mike! CAn Siege weapons be moved after they’ve been built?

Mike Ferguson:
Most siege weapons cannot be moved, with the exception of siege golems.

Question:
Can we start playing WvW immediately, or do we have to be a certain level?
Is the difference in levels noticeable?
Do we get exp/loot from WvW?

Mike Ferguson:
@Manwlatsi You can play WvW as soon as you leave the tutorial section. You will gain exp and loot during wvw so you can level up in WvW all the way to 80. The level difference is noticeable as higher level folks have more skills and better gear, but we’ve been working hard ot make ot so even a lower level person can contribute and not get instantly killed by higher level folks.

Question:
In regard to Spell Animation in W3 (WvWvW), I Have a question.
Point of Reference: http://youtu.be/EjDJXZIwU5k?t=11m40s
While stunningly beautiful, spell effects can at times cloud visibility. Imagine a clump of 40 people massed in a single area in W3, using sills with high amounts of particle effects. Do you think that there is possibility for these to be toned down a bit so that players are still able to mantain an awareness of who/what they are attacking?

Question:
Given that WorldvWorld will be active from the start, will it be available on overflow servers for the inevitable server congestion?

Mike Ferguson:
No it will not, world versus world is not available on overflow shards. Overflow shards for world versus world don’t really work since world versus world has a number of bonuses that apply to your world, and there is no sense of a larger community in an overflow shard.

Question:
Given that WvW is based on your original server, how hard will it be for a guild to get everyone on the server? Will we have to distribute a server name/number before game launch to make sure everyone’s on the same page? How regional are these servers, could our euro members choose to home in a US server?

Mike Ferguson:
We will do our best to provide tools that help people find the same server so they can play together, but it’s inevitable that someone will have friends that end up on a different server. We want you to be able to play with those friends as well as the ones you know from your day to day adventures in Tyria, which is why we allow people to visit other servers but to fight in the mists together everyone has to be fighting for the same nworld.

Question:
Do you have to take an Asura Gate to get to the enemy’s borderlands or the eternal battlegrounds?

Mike Ferguson:
yes

Question:
My question regarding WvWvW is, is the battle area instanced off? Is this something you have to queue up for, or is it an area you can physically run to?
I would hope that it is an area that feels integrated into the whole map so that it feels like your world is being invaded, rather than feeling like a mini-game with no particular impact on the world.

Mike Ferguson:
You have to take an asura gate into the maps. The maps aren’t instances, so unfortunately if they reach capacity you will need to queue up to enter that map.

Question:
If players are instantly able to teleport to any objective they control, wouldn’t that make it near impossible to capture any new objectives if the enemy team is constanly spawning in?

Mike Ferguson:
you cant instantly teleport to every objective. The only waypoints that exist in the map are at the safe areas and at keeps that have been upgraded to have a waypoint.

Mike Ferguson:
For all the people asking about EU/US servers, I really dont know anything about that. All I know about servers is that there are three of them fighting in each WvW battle

Question:
Will be some WvsW rank/title?

Mike Ferguson:
We have WvW achievements. No ranks as of yet, titles are a possibility but we don’t have those in the game yet.

Question:
Watching a WvW video I saw a full zerg slowly kill a single keep door for about 15 minutes, is this is a number you’re happy with or will you decrease the time on such repetitive tasks?
I understand you want the enemy to have a chance to regroup and defend but maybe deathspam on guards or some warnings like in DAoC would help alliviate this problem?

Mike Ferguson:
We have already made a number of changes based on our last test, and this was one of the first things we changed!

Question:
Are the UI related elements for supplies still a WIP? The current display of a small piece of white text doesn’t look good at all, and is very out of place compared to the rest of the map elements.

Mike Ferguson:
Yes.

Question:
Like in GW1, will you add seasonal objectives and/or designs and events around the holidays specific to WvW?

Mike Ferguson:
We are working mainly on finishing WvW. Discussions about holiday events haven’t taken place.

Question:
When first entering WvW how will we be able to tell where the actions is?

Mike Ferguson:
Pulling up your map will give indications as to where some of the hots spots are.

Question:
Can you convince my wife, who normally has no interest in pvp, to take part in WvW?

Mike Ferguson:
We’ve heard “I usually dont PvP, but I love WvW” again and again from people in our beta, so there’s a vgood chance she might just like it with no convincing required

Question:
What will the nature of PVP (WvW) loot? Assuming normal PvE mob loot is, say, an item, armor, or weapon, will WvW loot be similarly randomized? Or will there be an award of a piece of special currency (medal?) that you will use to purchase loot of your choice?

Mike Ferguson:
We actually have both! You can get regular loot drops and tokens that can be turned in at level 80 for gear.

Question:
will there be underwater entrances to the castle or keeps?

Mike Ferguson:
There are a few sneaky entrances to keeps, but I don’t want to spoil it for everyone! You will need to go out exploring.

Question:
Can you craft in WvW, or do you have to leave the mists?

Mike Ferguson:
We are aiming for WvW to function much like PvE. You will be able to gather and craft.

Question:
what will happen if one server conquers the entire map?

Mike Ferguson:
The other two servers need to work together to beat them back.. We saw that very thing happen this weekend when green took the entire map. We were red and we decided that blue was not who we should be fighting. Within hours we has fought back and recaptured a large portion of the map.
Also, since servers get rematched every two weeks, that server will get matched up with other servers when the battle ends.

Question:
Will some of the items be limited to drop only in PvE or PvP?

Mike Ferguson:
We will have some PvE uniques that wont be obtainable in WvW.

Question:
Well, how do you feel after answering so many questions?

Mike Ferguson:
Excited! Keep them coming!

Question:
Hi Mike, thanks for holding the AMA session! I have 3 questions: 1. Is there a way to chat with the other servers in WvW? So you can organise a (temporary) Alliance if you want to call in help? 2. If a guild takes over a keep or tower, is it still possible to enter that keep and help defending it against attackers if you are not in that guild? 3. What’s (aprox.) the limit per server for people to log on? It’s confusing to get a sense of scale. Once it’s said about 1000, other times, in your last log, it’s hunderds.

Mike Ferguson:
We will not allow cross server chat in game.
Yes, as long as you are on the same team you can always enter a location your team owns.
(no fair adding edits later ) I can’t give you an exact figure yet as we are still working on optimizing capacity numbers. We can already support about 300 people in each map as we demonstrated this weekend, now we’ll be working to keep pushing that number higher!

Question:
If cross server chat isn’t happening, what kinda of system is gonna be put in place for server to server alliances?

Mike Ferguson:
Trust me, people will find a way to organize backstabb…err..treaties with the other teams

Question:
If i kill a player in WvW then will i gain some points like in aion pvp points ? Or hot i gain the points to buy pvp armor or weapons ?

Mike Ferguson:
When you kill someone you get gold or even sometimes items. There is no PvP armor in WvW, its just armor.

Question:
After 4k+ hours put into my original GW account, I have huge excitement for this. I don’t want to ask anything really, except to thank you and your staff for doing such a great job with the fans and tolerating all the recurring questions. Keep it up and GW2 will blow every game out of their socks. Rock on!

Mike Ferguson:
Fans like you make it all worth it! Thank you for your dedication!

Question:
Could you elaborate or point towards an article that explains the two week process? From what I understand, you are locked with two other servers for those two weeks and after that time period, you are given a different, random two servers to compete with for the next two weeks, so on and so forth? So, will this process actually be random, or is there a list “Server A will fight B and C this cycle, then D and E next,” so on and so forth? And, is there ever a possibility of getting the same server twice in a row? Thanks, very excited for Guild Wars 2! Necromancers unite >:)

Mike Ferguson:
We have a scoring system based loosely on elo that will rank each server based on how well they did in the match. Once the battle ends we look at final scores, adjust each servers ranking accordingly and then rematch servers to place team with similar ranking together.
My necro (Ferginomicon) approves this message!

Question:
can you turn spell effects completely off so large wvw fights can be playable for people with slow pcs?

Mike Ferguson:
Our programmers and artists are working on the effect spam problem now so hopefully you wont have to turn all those effects off, but I don’t know anything more than that

Question: 34 minutes ago
Hey mike, hope your still around. When the Wuv Wuh map resets do all the keeps, towers ect. default to neutrally controlled? If not how is control decided?
Also a suggestion that I feel will get buried in another post, but people were asking about ranks/titles. IMO there should be something similar to the fame system from GW1 where some ranks get a cool emote.

Mike Ferguson: 29 minutes ago
At the start of a Wuvly match (see what I did there?) all objectives will be reset to a neutral state.
Suggestion noted!

Mike Ferguson: 17 minutes ago
Ok folks, got about 10 minutes left before I need to get back to working on the game instead of just talking about it. Thanks for showing up and asking so many good questions!

Question:
I think WvW sounds great, a true spiritual successor to DAoC of old. My only big concern is this: How are the red/blue/green teams decided?
Followup questions: if my world is “blue” this week and then the 2-week resuffle happens, will we be blue again in the following round? Is it random? Won’t it be difficult for many players to remember which color they are “this time” if they are switching around every two weeks? Or will there be some very obvious way to tell which team you are on “today”?

Mike Ferguson:
It is decided by which server you choose to play on. You will not always be on the same color. We will however make it clear which color you are.

Question:
Can colorblind people easily differentiate between colors?

Mike Ferguson:
Not right now as we use Red/green for team colors but it’s a topic we discuss regularly because we know there are a lot of red/green colorblind people in our community and we want them to have as much fun as everybody else!

Question:
Hey Mike,
What will be the population cap for WvW ?

Mike Ferguson:
We are still doing tests to see just how far we can push the numbers for WvW. We have pushed over 300 on our last test.

Question:
I know it’s a bit off-topic and not about WvW at all.
But is Hoelbrak currently in revamping? All the structures in the middle of the city have been removed. I’m worried about that

Mike Ferguson:
Don’t be!

Question:
To what extent can a player dodge another players skills? Most of us, are probably used to the homing missiles, seen in most mmo’s, so could we expect to see at lot of missed skills-shots?

Mike Ferguson:
Dodging is a critical part of GW2 combat. Dodging allows you to avoid almost all skills so being able to notice a big attack coming and rolling out of the way will be a big part of staying alive in the game.

Question:
Is it possible to destroy a whole outpost, rather than to capture it?

Mike Ferguson:
It is possible to destroy walls that protect that outpost, or the gates. It is not possible to raze the tower to completely nothing.

Question:
How much can lower level players realistically contribute in WvW?

Mike Ferguson:
Lower level players are bumped to 80. While going toe to toe with a level 80 will be difficult, you will still be able to compete.

Question:
Is there anything in place to allow a guild to take control of a large keep from another guild that is from their own server?

Mike Ferguson:
Nope, you cannot claim something that another guild has claimed.

Question:
As you already have “Invader” tags for enemy players, why did you stop there instead of expanding on this system and using it for ranks like DAoC did?

Mike Ferguson:
Mostly because of time. We want to ship the game at some point (honestly we do!) and we’ve been focused on getting the core mechanics in and working before working on things like that.

Question:
I have been watching what is available on Youtube etc for the press beta that just happened.
I have come to fear that, although I love the scaling and events etc, some people might be able to troll by simply getting close to an area in order to make it scale…. but then just sit idle and not actually help.
Even if they aren’t going to get any rewards… to a troll…
that may not be enough just to make your boss fight like…. it should have 4 people dealing damage… when in fact there are only 2 or 3…
anything on this?

Mike Ferguson:
It’s actually really hard to do that. One person trolling an event area isn’t going to have that much of an impact. It might make the event slightly harder, but if that person is in the event area, they’re probably not going to be able to just stand there as our events cover big areas and mobs can come in from all directions.

Question:
From what ive seen on the recent press beta videos, frequently it takes a lot of time to get a player kill, do you have any backup plan to either increase xp gain/money drop per kill in order to balance it out how much you get from doing WvW or just go PvE.

Mike Ferguson:
Rewards are currently not balanced at all for WvW. This is something we will be balancing in the future.

Mike Ferguson, a Systems Desginer for Guild Wars 2, published a developer’s blog with many community based question regarding WvW. There were a myriad of topics he discussed including siege engines, bonuses and more. The most interesting mechanic he discussed was Server Transfers:

Server Transfers
Some of our more astute fans asked about the complications involved with switching servers and how it would interact with world bonuses. Every account has a home server where your characters are created. You can only fight for your home world in WvW. You can visit other servers, and while you are visiting, you still get the world bonus from your home world instead of the bonus for the world you are visiting. If you switch your home server, you lose the bonus from your previous home world and are not eligible for the bonus for your new server at least until the beginning of the next battle for the Mists. We may extend this disqualification into the next match or possibly even longer to discourage people from switching servers right before a battle ends in order to get an awesome bonus. You will have to pay a fee to change your home server (price undetermined), and that will also discourage people from server hopping to chase world bonuses.

Also, if you want to ask Mike Ferguson any questions, he’s hosting an AMA in several hours (9am PST) on Reddit.