Over this past weekend, Colin Johanson, Guild Wars 2′s Game Director had a few words to share on the philosophy behind PvP ranks and ArenaNet’s stance on the addition of competitive, instanced PvP such as the new paid tournaments coming to the game in Shadow of the Mad King, Guild Wars 2′s first major content update. He also hints on more PvP content in the future:

Originally posted by Colin Johanson (Source)

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Rank is intended to be a metric to show much how you’ve played of PvP, and how experienced you are over-all as a result. The various banners that come with rank is a bit of a prestige thing that says “I’ve played me a ton of PvP!”

The addition of our new paid tournaments, and the features that will follow after it will be how we answer that clear question of: “who is the best”. We think it’s important to have both. As we begin our new live releases, starting with Shadow of the Mad King (and the new pvp hero tab and paid tournaments) you’ll see pvp feature additions come very regularly going forward!

All the best and happy n00b stomping,

As a random note, I kind of like any game developer who’s comfortable saying a phrase like “n00b stomping”.

Jonathan Sharp, Content Designer at ArenaNet, shared some interesting PvP news in a developer blog published yesterday. Guild Wars 2 is going to have a much larger structured PvP scene, and in the near future players will not only be able to take part in normal (free) PvP tournaments as they can now, but also more competitive, paid tournaments that will offer a different set of rewards:

As the name implies, paid automated tournaments have an entry fee. You’ll need tickets to enter a paid tournament, which you can purchase in the gem store, find in reward chests from free tournaments, and receive when you rank up!

These tournaments reward ALL teams that play in them, and offer better rewards on average than free tournaments. Successful teams can earn excellent rewards from paid tournaments, but you’ve got to be good to finish in the top prize slots. We expect that more experienced PvP players will start to migrate to paid tournaments because the risk/reward is much higher than in the free automated tournaments.

There is also no matchmaking in the paid tournaments. You have to come in with a premade team, which means the teams will ALL be organized teams – you won’t have premade groups fighting pick-up groups as you would in free paid tournaments.

Players will most likely need Tournament Tickets to take part in these tournaments, which are already available in the Black Lion Trading Company for gems.

ArenaNet is also working on a custom arena system, where players can set up a private, password-protected area for friends and guildmates, and use it to arrange custom challenges. The team also has additional PvP features in store for Guild Wars 2 players, but some of those plans are tight under wraps for the moment. Read the full developer blog for all the details.

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.

Reddit user donoftheslum has put together an amazing compilation of armor and weapon models for each race of all the PVP armor sets that you can find in the lockers. So if you’re trying to finally decide on a race, then this collection is for you.

Due to the request of original poster, we have kept the links to the original galleries intact. Thanks don!

Information

There are four different model types:

• Asura Male and Female
• Charr Male and Female
• Human, Sylvari, Norn Male
• Human, Sylvari, Norn Female

I chose Charr Male, Asura Female, Human Male (Norn starting area wasn't working) and Human Female. This should cover all the available armor types.

Want to see what Norn Male armor looks like? View Human Male. They are the same. Sylvari Female? Human Female is the same. Hence the * in the title.

Keep reading for all the gallery links!

Arenanet has published another dev blog, but this time in the form of Video! Keep reading to watch the videos, or you can find them on Anet’s dev blog page.

Earlier in the development of Guild Wars 2 we released our MMO Manifesto video, a high-level look at the philosophy behind the design of the game. As we approach the launch date, now is the perfect time to talk about the outcome of that design philosophy with a look at the core ideas that the game is built on: personal story, dynamic events, combat, and PvP.

The only video missing is for WvW! But Anet is promising that is coming soon.

We got a chance to ask Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer, Eric Flannum, a few questions about the game ranging from World vs World, class balance, PVP vs. PVE progression and more. We’re very excited to share this with, especially on the same day that Arenanet has announced that the game’s launch is August 28, just two months from now!

GW2 Junkies: Guild Wars 2 has some amazing character models, ranging from gigantic norn to tiny asura. With any competitive MMO, players worry about hit boxes and how character models affect gameplay. Since a player can get hit by stray damage, how have you designed the hit boxes for all the varied sizes and shapes that GW2 has to offer—asura are short, norn are tall, charr are wide (and low to the ground when they are running), etc.?

Eric Flannum: Every player character in Guild Wars 2 has the exact same sized collision cylinder. For asura this means that the cylinder is larger than they are and for norn it means that it is smaller. Very early in the process of making the game we knew this was going to be the case, so the min and max sizes of our races are heavily influenced by this.

Player vs. Player is always a hot topic when a new game comes out. Arenanet has been talking about their player vs player in Guild Wars 2 for quite sometime and I decided to dive in and start to poke around their matchmaking competitive systems.

In Guild Wars 2 all inter-player battle takes place in a special realm called the Mists. Ironically enough, based on some lore digging and NPC chatter, the Mists are also the after-life (uh-oh). There are two ways to take part in player vs player while in the Mists. They are as separate and distinct from one another as PvP and PvE.

MMO Reviews has an interview up with Eric Flannum, Lead Game Designer, where they discuss a myriad of topics on Guild Wars 2. The interview opens up with these two questions:

What are your plans for the WvW content of the game in the long run?

One of the coolest things that we’ve added to WvW recently is a persistent mini-dungeon that can be accessed through the three keeps in the center map. This area is designed with multiplayer PvP in mind and players can do things like activate the traps in the mini-dungeon to defeat enemy players. Of course, at the end of the area there’s a chest full of rewards.

We also have some exciting plans for WvW post-launch, but of course we don’t want to talk about our post-launch plans until after we ship the game and have had some time to implement things.

Will there be PvP tournaments or some other kind of scheduled competitions?

We fully plan to support tournaments in competitive PvP. We will have a variety of tournament types, from automated tournaments to more competitive scheduled tournaments.

We are still talking about whether or not we want to support any type of WvW tournaments after we launch. If player interest is high, then I think it’s definitely something we’d consider.

Make sure you read the rest of the article over at MMO Reviews.

Source: Exclusive interview with Eric Flannum the Lead Game Designer of Guild wars 2

Check out some Ranger sPVP action with a Greatsword & Sword/Dagger pet builds. Trait build focuses on Toughness and Vitality to increase survivability. Using three passive signets. Warning: video is low res.

Video after the break.

The stress test yesterday yielded some great PVP videos and today we’re noting TOPvP with some great commentary regarding his elementalist and engineer builds. Check them out after the break.

G4TV gives an awesome preview of some World vs. World action in the video above a long with a full article that gives you all the details of a full siege.

Anyone can join in on the WvW battle and several GW2 game designers have stated that WvW should act like a stepping stone for those players who are interested in learning about PvP but not quite ready to jump in to the competitive side of things.

As you enter in to World vs. World, regardless of what level you actually are, you’ll be scaled up to level 80. You’ll retain all of your skills, abilities, and armor, but it will all be scaled up to level 80. This is different than in competitive PvP where everyone is given the same gear, and all of your abilities and traits are unlocked.

What this boils down to is that if you’re a level two player fighting a level 60 player in WvW, the level 60 player will have a huge advantage over you. They’ll have a variety of skills and better gear than you do, even though you’ve both been scaled up to level 80 in the environment. In competitive PvP, everyone is on an even playing field, but that’s not the case in WvW.

Source: Guild Wars 2 World vs. World Preview — Realms at War

Check the latest dev blog from Arenanet as Jordan Massey tells us about the role of squads in world vs. World combat.

Joining a squad is just as easy as sending a whisper or a party invite. Simply select a teammate and right-click their portrait. If they’re in a squad, you’ll see an option to join their squad. Click that and you’re in! The commander doesn’t have to approve your request—you can join and leave freely. It doesn’t matter whether you click on a commander or a squad member. You’ll join the squad as the person you clicked on, so you don’t have to worry about chasing down a commander in order to join a squad. In the party menu on the quick-launch bar, there’s a small squad panel. From there, you can leave the squad you’re in if you want to join a different one, or if you’re just done for the day.

Source: Role of a Squad in WvW

PlayerAttack.com gives us a great preview of their weekend of beta fun going over their favorite topic: PVP.

Much of the gameplay revolves around capturing and defending the various Supply Camps, Towers and Keeps spread across the map, with players battling to advance towards the Cradle of Power for the opposing Worlds. Each Cradle of Power holds an Orb of Power at the start of each two-week long bout. Capturing the Orb and successfully bringing it back to one of the Keeps controlled by your World grants bonuses to everyone on your side of the conflict. Having your own Orb spirited away naturally makes it that much harder to fight back against the side who took it from you.

PREVIEW: Guild Wars 2 – World vs World [PC]

Ranger in Guild Wars 2 is not far from what players have come to expect with the class. They are the masters of damage from afar with the long bow. It is mentioned in the vid that at the time of the press closed beta, ranger with long bow was extremely effective in pvp. Yet they can hold their own if their targets do happen to get into melee range.

In addition to their personal abilities rangers are also the true beast masters. While you do start with only a few options for your companion at character creation, you can tame ‘juvenile’ beast you come across. This actually may give rangers the crown when it comes to customization, as each pet offers unique abilities. Not to mention the role play value of being able to have the pet you want.

The necromancer class generally is one with a large diverse tool set. The weapon skills provide the bulk of the damage and secondary effects yet no pets are found in them. Instead with this usually pet heavy class you find them all as options in the healing, utility, and elite skill slots. Death shroud, the classes unique ability may seem simple with only four spells but they give you everything you need. From the looks of it the highest damage for the class can be found while in death shroud.

It is surprising that the class is not more pet focused. In fact the pets from the descriptions and video seem to be the under-powered aspect of the class. At this point the minion master play style from Guild Wars does not seem to have crossed over.